The serpent was held in great veneration by the ancients, who, as we

have seen, considered it as the symbol of the beneficent Deity, and an

emblem of eternity. As such it has been variously expressed on ancient

sculptures and medals in various parts of the globe.

Although generally, it did not always, symbolize the god _Sun_, or the

power of which the Sun is an emblem; but, invested with various

meanings, it entered widely into the primitive mythologies. As Mr.

Squire observes:

"It typified wisdom, power, duration, the _good_ and _evil_

principles, life, reproduction--in short, in Egypt, Syria,

Greece, India, China, Scandinavia, America, everywhere on the

globe, it has been a prominent emblem."[491:1]

The serpent was the symbol of Vishnu, the preserving god, the Saviour,

the _Sun_.[491:2] It was an emblem of the _Sun_-god Buddha, the

Angel-Messiah.[491:3] The Egyptian _Sun_-god Osiris, the Saviour, is

associated with the snake.[491:4] The Persian Mithra, the Mediator,

Redeemer, and Saviour, was symbolized by the serpent.[491:5] The

Phenicians represented their beneficent _Sun_-god Agathodemon, by a

serpent.[491:6] The serpent was, among the Greeks and Romans, the emblem

of a _beneficent genius_. Antipator of Sidon, calls the god Ammon, the

"Renowned Serpent."[491:7] The Grecian Hercules--the Sun-god--was

symbolized as a serpent; and so was Æsculapius and Apollo. The Hebrews,

who, as we have seen in Chapter XI., worshiped the god Sol, represented

him in the form of a serpent. This is the _seraph_--spoken of above--as

set up by Moses (Num. xxi. 3) and worshiped by the children of Israel.

SE RA PH is the singular of seraphim, meaning _Semilicé_--_splendor_,

_fire_, _light_--emblematic of the fiery disk of the Sun, and which,

under the name of _Nehush-tan_, "Serpent-dragon," was broken up by the

reforming Hezekiah.

The principal god of the _Aztecs_ was _Tonac_-atlcoatl, which means the

_Serpent Sun_.[491:8]

The Mexican virgin-born Lord and Saviour, Quetzalcoatle, was represented

in the form of a serpent. In fact, his name signifies "_Feathered

Serpent_." Quetzalcoatle was a personification of the _Sun_.[491:9]

Under the aspect of the _active principle_, we may rationally connect

the _Serpent_ and the _Sun_, as corresponding symbols of the

_reproductive_ or _creative power_. Figure No. 40 is a symbolical sign,

representing the disk of the _Sun_ encircled by the serpent _Uraeus_,

meaning the "KING SUN," or "ROYAL SUN," as it often surmounts the

persons of Egyptian monarchs, confirmed by the _emblem of_ LIFE

depending from the serpent's neck.[492:1]

[Illustration: Fig. No. 40]

The mysteries of Osiris, Isis, and Horus, in _Egypt_; Atys and Cybele,

in _Phrygia_; Ceres and Proserpine, at _Eleusis_; of Venus and Adonis,

in _Phenicia_; of Bona Dea and Priapus, in _Rome_, are all susceptible

of one explanation. They all set forth and illustrated, by solemn and

impressive rites, and _mystical symbols_, the grand phenomenon of

_nature_, especially as connected with the creation of things and the

perpetuation of life. In all, it is worthy of remark, the SERPENT was

more or less conspicuously introduced, and always as symbolical of the

invigorating or active energy of nature, the SUN.

We have seen (in Chapter XX.) that in early Christian art Christ Jesus

also was represented as a _crucified Lamb_. This crucified lamb is "the

Lamb of God taking away the sins of the world, and slain from the

foundation of the world."[492:2] In other words, the crucified lamb

typifies the _crucified Sun_, for the lamb was another symbol of the

Sun, as we shall presently see.

We find, then, that the stories of the crucifixions of the different

so-called SAVIOURS of mankind _all melt into ONE_, and that they are

_allegorical_, for "_Saviour_" was only a title of the _Sun_,[492:3] and

his being put to death on the cross, signifies no more than the

restriction of the power of the Sun in the winter quarter. With Justin

Martyr, then, we can say:

"There exists not a people, whether Greek or barbarian, or any

other race of men, by whatsoever appellation or manners they

may be distinguished, however ignorant of arts or agriculture,

whether they dwell under the tents, or wander about in

crowded wagons, among whom prayers are not offered up in the

name of A CRUCIFIED SAVIOUR[493:1] to the Father and creator

of all things."[493:2]

9. "_And many women were there beholding afar off._"[493:3] The tender

mother who had watched over him at his birth, and the fair maidens whom

he has loved, will never forsake him. They yet remain with him, and

while their tears drop on his feet, which they kiss, their voices cheer

him in his last hour. In these we have the _Dawn_, who bore him, and the

fair and beautiful lights which flush the Eastern sky as the Sun sinks

or dies in the West.[493:4] Their tears are the tears of dew, such as

Eôs weeps at the death of her child.

All the Sun-gods forsake their homes and virgin mothers, and wander

through different countries doing marvellous things. Finally, at the end

of their career, the mother, from whom they were parted long ago, is by

their side to cheer them in their last hours.[493:5]

The ever-faithful women were to be found at the last scene in the life

of _Buddha_. Kasyapa having found the departed master's feet soiled and

wet, asked Nanda the cause of it. "He was told that a weeping woman had

embraced Gautama's feet shortly before his death, and that her tears had

fallen on his feet and left the marks on them."[493:6]

In his last hours, _OEdipous_ (the Sun) has been cheered by the

presence of Antigone.[493:7]

At the death of _Hercules_, Iole (_the fair-haired Dawn_) stands by his

side, cheering him to the last. With her gentle hands she sought to

soothe his pain, and with pitying words to cheer him in his woe. Then

once more the face of Hercules flushed with a deep joy, and he said:

"Ah, Iole, brightest of maidens, thy voice shall cheer me as I

sink down in the sleep of death. I saw and loved thee in the

bright _morning time_, and now again thou hast come, _in the

evening_, fair as the soft clouds which gather around the

_dying Sun_."

The _black mists_ were spreading over the sky, but still Hercules sought

to gaze on the fair face of Iole, and to comfort her in her sorrow.

"Weep not, Iole," he said, "my toil is done, and now is the

time for rest. I shall see thee again in the bright land which

is never trodden by the feet of night."

The same story is related in the legend of _Apollo_. The Dawn, from

whom he parted in the early part of his career, comes to his side at

_eventide_, and again meets him when his journey on earth has well nigh

come to an end.[494:1]

When the Lord _Prometheus_ was crucified on Mt. Caucasus, his especially

professed friend, Oceanus, the fisherman, as his name, Petræus,

indicates,[494:2] being unable to prevail on him to make his peace with

Jupiter, by throwing the cause of human redemption out of his

hands,[494:3] "forsook him and fled." None remained to be witnesses of

his dying agonies, but the chorus of ever amiable and ever-faithful

women, which also bewailed and lamented him, but were unable to subdue

his inflexible philanthropy.[494:4]

10. "_There was darkness all over the land._"[494:5] In the same manner

ends the tale of the long toil and sorrows of other Sun-gods. The last

scene exhibits a manifest return to the spirit of the solar myth. He

must not die the common death of all men, for no disease or corruption

can touch the body of the brilliant Sun. After a long struggle against

the dark clouds who are arrayed against him, he is finally overcome, and

dies. Blacker and blacker grow the evening shades, and finally "there is

darkness on the face of the earth," and the din of its thunder clashes

through the air.[494:6]

It is the picture of a sunset in wild confusion, of a sunset more awful,

yet not more sad, than that which is seen in the last hours of many

other _Sun_-gods.[494:7] It is the picture of the loneliness of the

_Sun_, who sinks slowly down, with the ghastly hues of death upon his

face, while none is nigh to cheer him save the ever-faithful women.

11. "_He descended into hell._"[494:8] This is the _Sun's_ descent into

the _lower regions_. It enters the sign Capricornus, or the Goat, and

the astronomical winter begins. The days have reached their shortest

span, and the _Sun_ has reached his extreme southern limit. The winter

solstice reigns, and the Sun seems to stand still in his southern

course. For three days and three nights he remains in hell--the lower

regions.[495:1] In this respect _Christ_ Jesus is like other

Sun-gods.[495:2]

In the ancient sagas of Iceland, the hero who is the Sun personified,

descends into a tomb, where he fights a vampire. After a desperate

struggle, the hero overcomes, and rises to the surface of the earth.

"This, too, represents the Sun in the northern realms, descending into

the tomb of winter, and there overcoming the power of darkness."[495:3]

12. _He rose again from the dead, and ascended into heaven._

Resurrections from the dead, and ascensions into heaven, are generally

acknowledged to be _solar_ features, as the history of many solar heroes

agree in this particular.

At the _winter solstice_ the ancients wept and mourned for _Tammuz_, the

fair Adonis, and other Sun-gods, done to death by the boar, or

crucified--slain by the thorn of winter--and on the _third day_ they

rejoiced at the resurrection of their "Lord of Light."[495:4]

With her usual policy, the Church endeavored to give a Christian

significance to the rites which they borrowed from heathenism, and in

this case, the mourning for Tammuz, the fair Adonis, became the mourning

for Christ Jesus, and joy at the rising of the natural Sun became joy at

the rising of the "Sun of Righteousness"--at the resurrection of Christ

Jesus from the grave.

This festival of the Resurrection was generally held by the ancients on

the 25th of March, when the awakening of _Spring_ may be said to be the

result of the return of the Sun from the lower or far-off regions to

which he had departed. At the equinox--say, the vernal--at _Easter_,

the Sun has been below the equator, and suddenly rises above it. It has

been, as it were, dead to us, but now it exhibits a resurrection.[496:1]

The Saviour rises triumphant over the powers of darkness, to life and

immortality, on the 25th of March, when the Sun rises in Aries.

Throughout all the ancient world, _the resurrection of the god Sol_,

under different names, was celebrated on March 25th, with great

rejoicings.[496:2]

In the words of the Rev. Geo. W. Cox:

"The wailing of the Hebrew women at the death of Tammuz, the

crucifixion and resurrection of Osiris, the adoration of the

Babylonian Mylitta, the Sacti ministers of Hindu temples, the

cross and crescent of Isis, the rites of the Jewish altar of

Baal-Peor, wholly preclude all doubt of the real nature of the

great _festivals_ and _mysteries_ of Phenicians, Jews,

Assyrians, Egyptians, and Hindus."[496:3]

All this was _Sun_ and Nature worship, symbolized by the _Linga_ and

_Yoni_. As Mr. Bonwick says:

"The philosophic theist who reflects upon the story, known

from the walls of China, across Asia and Europe, to the

plateau of Mexico, cannot resist the impression that no

_materialistic_ theory of it can be satisfactory."[496:4]

_Allegory_ alone explains it.

"The Church, at an early date, selected the heathen festivals

of _Sun worship_ for its own, ordering the _birth at

Christmas_, a fixed time, and the _resurrection at Easter_, a

varying time, as in all Pagan religions; since, though the Sun

rose directly after the vernal equinox, the festival, to be

correct in a _heathen_ point of view, had to be associated

with the new moon."[496:5]

The Christian, then, may well say:

"When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of winter, thou didst

open the kingdom of heaven (_i. e._, bring on the reign of

summer), to all believers."

13. _Christ Jesus is Creator of all things._ We have seen (in Chapter

XXVI.) that it was not God the Father, who was supposed by the ancients

to have been the _Creator_ of the world, but God the Son, the Redeemer

and Saviour of Mankind. Now, this Redeemer and Saviour was, as we have

seen, the Sun, and Prof. Max Müller tells us that in the _Vedic_

mythology, the Sun is not the bright Deva only, "who performs his daily

task in the sky, but he is supposed to perform much greater work. He is

looked upon, in fact, as the _Ruler_, as the _Establisher_, as the

_Creator of the world_."[496:6]

Having been invoked as the "Life-bringer," the Sun is also called--in

the Rig-Veda--"the Breath or Life of all that move and rest;" and lastly

he becomes "_The Maker of all things_," by whom all the worlds have been

brought together.[497:1]

There is a prayer in the _Vedas_, called _Gayatree_, which consists of

three measured lines, and is considered the holiest and most efficacious

of all their religious forms. Sir William Jones translates it thus:

"Let us adore the supremacy of that spiritual Sun, the

godhead, who illuminates all, who re-creates all, from whom

all proceed, to whom all must return; whom we invoke to direct

our undertakings aright in our progress toward his holy seat."

With Seneca (a Roman philosopher, born at Cordova, Spain, 61 B. C.)

then, we can say:

"You may call the Creator of all things by different names

(Bacchus, Hercules, Mercury, etc.), but they are only

different names of the same divine being, the _Sun_."

14. _He is to be Judge of the quick and the dead._ Who is better able

than the Sun to be the judge of man's deeds, seeing, as he does, from

his throne in heaven, all that is done on earth? The Vedas speak of

Sûrya--the pervading, irresistible luminary--as seeing all things and

hearing all things, _noting the good and evil deeds of men_.[497:2]

According to Hindoo mythology, says Prof. Max Müller:

"The Sun sees everything, both what is good and what is evil;

and how natural therefore that (in the Indian Veda) both the

evil-doer should be told that the sun sees what no human eye

may have seen, and that the innocent, when all other help

fails him, should appeal to the sun to attest his

guiltlessness."

"Frequent allusion is made (in the Rig-Veda), to the sun's

power of seeing everything. The stars flee before the

all-seeing sun, like thieves. He sees the right and the wrong

among men. He who looks upon the world knows also the thoughts

in all men. As the sun sees everything and knows everything,

he is asked to forget and forgive what he alone has seen and

knows."[497:3]

On the most ancient Egyptian monuments, Osiris, the Sun personified, is

represented as Judge of the dead. The Egyptian "Book of the Dead," the

oldest Bible in the world, speaks of Osiris as "seeing all things, and

hearing all things, noting the good and evil deeds of men."

15. _He will come again sitting on a white horse._ The "second coming"

of Vishnu (Crishna), _Christ_ Jesus, and other Sun-gods, are also

_astronomical allegories_. The _white horse_, which figures so

conspicuously in the legend, was the universal symbol of the Sun among

Oriental nations.

Throughout the whole legend, _Christ_ Jesus is the toiling Sun, laboring

for the benefit of others, not his own, and doing hard service for a

mean and cruel generation. Watch his sun-like career of brilliant

conquest, checked with intervals of storm, and declining to a death

clouded with sorrow and derision. He is in constant company with his

_twelve_ apostles, the _twelve signs of the zodiac_.[498:1] During the

course of his life's journey he is called "The God of Earthly Blessing,"

"The Saviour through whom a new life springs," "The Preserver," "The

Redeemer," &c. Almost at his birth the Serpent of darkness attempts to

destroy him. Temptations to sloth and luxury are offered him in vain. He

has his work to do, and nothing can stay him from doing it, as nothing

can arrest the Sun in his journey through the heavens. Like all other

solar heroes, he has his faithful women who love him, and the Marys and

Martha here play the part. Of his toils it is scarcely necessary to

speak in detail. They are but a thousand variations on the story of the

great conflict which all the Sun-gods wage against the demon of

darkness. He astonishes his tutor when sent to school. This we might

expect to be the case, when an incomparable and incommunicable wisdom is

the heritage of the Sun. He also represents the wisdom and beneficence

of the bright Being who brings life and light to men. As the Sun wakens

the earth to life when the winter is done, so Crishna, Buddha, Horus,

Æsculapius, and _Christ_ Jesus were raisers of the dead. When the leaves

fell and withered on the approach of winter, the "daughter of the earth"

would be spoken of as dying or dead, and, as no other power than that of

the Sun can recall vegetation to life, this child of the earth would be

represented as buried in a sleep from which the touch of the Sun alone

could rouse her.

_Christ_ Jesus, then, is the Sun, in his short career and early death.

He is the child of the Dawn, whose soft, violet hues tint the clouds of

early morn; his father being the Sky, the "Heavenly Father," who has

looked down with love upon the Dawn, and overshadowed her. When his

career on earth is ended, and he expires, the loving mother, who parted

from him in the morning of his life, is at his side, looking on the

death of the Son whom she cannot save from the doom which is on him,

while her tears fall on his body like rain at sundown. From her he is

parted at the beginning of his course; to her he is united at its close.

But _Christ_ Jesus, like Crishna, Buddha, Osiris, Horus, Mithras,

Apollo, Atys and others, _rises again_, and thus the myth takes us a

step beyond the legend of Serpedon and others, which stop at the end of

the eastward journey, when the night is done.

According to the Christian calendar, the birthday of John the Baptist is

on the day of the summer solstice, when the sun begins to decrease. How

true to nature then are the words attributed to him in the fourth

Gospel, when he says that he must _decrease_, and Jesus _increase_.

Among the ancient Teutonic nations, fires were lighted, on the tops of

hills, on the 24th of June, in honor of the WENDING SUN. This custom is

still kept up in Southern Germany and the Scotch highlands, and it is

the day selected by the Roman Catholic church to celebrate the nativity

of John the Baptist.[499:1]

Mosheim, the ecclesiastical historian, speaking of the uncertainty of

the time when _Christ_ Jesus was born, says: "The uncertainty of this

point is of no great consequence. We know that the _Sun of

Righteousness_ has shone upon the world; and although we cannot fix the

precise period in which he arose, this will not preclude us from

enjoying the direction and influence of his vital and salutary beams."

These sacred legends abound with such expressions as can have no

possible or conceivable application to any other than to the "God of

day." He is "a light to lighten the Gentiles, and to be the glory (or

brightness) of his people."[499:2] He is come "a light into the world,

that whosoever believeth in him should not abide in darkness."[499:3] He

is "the light of the world."[499:4] He "is light, and in him no darkness

is."[499:5]

"Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, Adonai, and by thy

great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this

night."--_Collect, in Evening Service._

God of God, light of light, very God of very God."--_Nicene

Creed._

"Merciful Adonai, we beseech thee to cast thy bright beams of

light upon thy Church."--_Collect of St. John._

"To thee all angels cry aloud, the heavens, and all the powers

therein."

"Heaven and earth are full of the majesty of thy glory" (or

brightness).

"The glorious company of the (_twelve months_, or) apostles

praise thee."

"Thou art the King of Glory, O Christ!"

"When thou tookest upon thee to deliver man, thou passest

through the constellation, or zodiacal sign--the Virgin."

"When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of winter, thou didst

open the kingdom of heaven (_i. e._, bring on the reign of the

summer months) to all believers."

"All are agreed," says Cicero, "that Apollo is none other than the SUN,

because the attributes which are commonly ascribed to Apollo do so

wonderfully agree thereto."

Just so surely as Apollo is the Sun, so is the Lord _Christ_ Jesus the

Sun. That which is so conclusive respecting the Pagan deities, applies

also to the God of the Christians; but, like the Psalmist of old, they

cry, "Touch not MY Christ, and do my prophets no harm."

Many Christian writers have seen that the history of their Lord and

Saviour is simply the history of the Sun, but they either say nothing,

or, like Dr. Parkhurst and the Rev. J. P. Lundy, claim that the Sun is a

type of the true Sun of Righteousness. Mr. Lundy, in his "Monumental

Christianity," says:

"Is there no bright Sun of Righteousness--no _personal_ and

loving Son of God, _of whom the material Sun has been the type

or symbol, in all ages and among all nations_? What power is

it that comes from the Sun to give light and heat to all

created things? If the symbolical Sun leads such a great

earthly and heavenly flock, what must be said to the _true_

and only begotten Son of God? If Apollo was adopted by early

Christian art as a _type_ of the Good Shepherd of the New

Testament, _then this interpretation of the Sun-god among all

nations must be the solution of the universal mythos, or what

other solution can it have_? To what other _historical_

personage but Christ can it apply? _If this mythos has no

spiritual meaning, then all religion becomes mere idolatry, or

the worship of material things._"[500:1]

Mr. Lundy, who seems to adhere to this once-upon-a-time favorite theory,

illustrates it as follows:

"The young _Isaac_ is his (Christ's) Hebrew type, bending

under the wood, as Christ fainted under the cross; _Daniel_ is

his type, stripped of all earthly fame and greatness, and cast

naked into the deepest danger, shame and humiliation." "_Noah_

is his type, in saving men from utter destruction, and

bringing them across the sea of death to a new world and a new

life." "_Orpheus_ is a type of Christ. _Agni_ and _Crishna_ of

India; _Mithra_ of Persia; _Horus_ and _Apollo_ of Egypt, are

all types of Christ." "_Samson_ carrying off the gates of Gaza

and defeating the Philistines by his own death, was considered

as a type of Christ bursting open and carrying away the gates

of Hades, and conquering His and our enemies by his death and

resurrection."[501:1]

According to this theory, the whole Pagan religion was typical of Christ

and Christianity. Why then were not the Pagans the Lord's _chosen_

people instead of the children of Israel?

The early Christians were charged with being a sect of _Sun

worshipers_.[501:2] The ancient Egyptians worshiped the god _Serapis_,

and Serapis was the _Sun_. Fig. No. 11, page 194, shows the manner in

which Serapis was personified. It might easily pass for a representation

of the Sun-god of the Christians. Mr. King says, in his "Gnostics, and

their Remains":

"There can be no doubt that the head of Serapis, marked as the

face is by a grave and pensive majesty, _supplied the first

idea for the conventional portraits of the Saviour_."[501:3]

The Imperial Russian Collection _boasts_ of a head of Christ Jesus which

is said to be very ancient. It is a fine intaglio on emerald. Mr. King

says of it:

"It is in reality a head of _Serapis_, seen in front and

crowned with Persia boughs, easily mistaken for thorns, though

the bushel on the head leaves no doubt as to the real

personage intended."[501:4]

It must not be forgotten, in connection with this, that the worshipers

of Serapis, or the Sun, were called _Christians_.[501:5]

Mrs. Jameson, speaking on this subject, says:

"We search in vain for the lightest evidence of his (Christ's)

human, individual semblance, in the writing of those disciples

who knew him so well. In this instance the instincts of

earthly affection seem to have been mysteriously overruled. He

whom all races of men were to call brother, was not to be too

closely associated with the particular lineaments of any one.

St. John, the beloved disciple, could lie on the breast of

Jesus with all the freedom of fellowship, but not even he has

left a word to indicate what manner of man was the Divine

Master after the flesh. . . . Legend has, in various form,

supplied this natural craving, but it is hardly necessary to

add, that all accounts of pictures of our Lord taken from

Himself are without historical foundation. _We are therefore

left to imagine the expression_ most befitting the character

of him who took upon himself our likeness, and looked at the

woes and sins of mankind through the eyes of our

mortality."[501:6]

The Rev. Mr. Geikie says, in his "Life of Christ":

"No hint is given in the New Testament of Christ's

_appearance_; and the early Church, in the absence of all

guiding facts, had to fall back on imagination."

"In its _first_ years, the Christian church fancied its

Lord's visage and form _marred more than those of other men_;

and that he must have had no attractions of personal beauty.

Justin Martyr (A. D. 150-160) speaks of him as _without beauty

or attractiveness_, and of _mean appearance_. Clement of

Alexandria (A. D. 200), describes him as of an _uninviting

appearance_, and _almost repulsive_. Tertullian (A. D.

200-210) says he had not even _ordinary human beauty_, far

less heavenly. Origen (A. D. 230) went so far as to say that

he was '_small in body and deformed_', as well as low-born,

and that, '_his only beauty was in his soul and

life_.'"[502:1]

One of the favorite ways finally, of depicting him, was, as Mr. Lundy

remarks:

"Under the figure of a beautiful and adorable youth, of about

fifteen or eighteen years of age, beardless, with a sweet

expression of countenance, _and long and abundant hair flowing

in curls over his shoulders_. His brow is sometimes encircled

by a diadem or bandeau, _like a young priest of the Pagan

gods_; that is, in fact, the favorite figure. On sculptured

sarcophagi, in fresco paintings and Mosaics, Christ is thus

represented as a graceful youth, _just as Apollo was figured

by the Pagans_, and as angels are represented by

Christians."[502:2]

Thus we see that the Christians took the paintings and statues of the

Sun-gods Serapis and Apollo _as models_, when they wished to represent

_their_ Saviour. That the former is the favorite at the present day need

not be doubted when we glance at Fig. No. 11, page 194.

Mr. King, speaking of this god, and his worshipers, says:

"There is very good reason to believe that in the _East_ the

worship of _Serapis_ was at first combined with

_Christianity_, and gradually merged into it with an entire

change of name, _not substance_, carrying with it many of its

ancient notions and rites."[502:3]

Again he says:

"In the second century the syncretistic sects that had sprung

up in _Alexandria_, the very hotbed of Gnosticism, found out

in _Serapis_ a prophetic _type_ of Christ, or the Lord and

Creator of all."[502:4]

The early _Christians_, or worshipers of the Sun, under the name of

"_Christ_," had, as all Sun-worshipers, _a peculiar regard to the

East_--the quarter in which their god rose--_to which point they

ordinarily directed their prayers_.[502:5]

The followers of Mithra always turned towards the East, when they

worshiped; the same was done by the Brahmans of the East, and the

Christians of the West. In the ceremony of baptism, the catechumen was

placed with his face to the West, the symbolical representation of the

prince of darkness, in opposition to the East, and made to spit towards

it at the evil one, and renounce his works.

Tertullian says, that Christians were taken for worshipers of the Sun

because they prayed towards the East, after the manner of those who

adored the Sun. The Essenes--whom Eusebius calls Christians--always

turned to the east to pray. The Essenes met once a week, and spent the

night in singing hymns, &c., which lasted till sun-rising. As soon as

dawn appeared, they retired to their cells, after saluting one another.

Pliny says the Christians of Bithynia met before it was light, and sang

hymns to Christ, as to a God. After their service they saluted one

another. Surely the circumstances of the two classes of people meeting

before daylight, is a very remarkable coincidence. It is just what the

Persian Magi, who were Sun worshipers, were in the habit of doing.

When a Manichæan Christian came over to the orthodox Christians, he was

required to curse his former friends in the following terms:

"I curse Zarades (Zoroaster?) who, Manes said, had appeared as

a god before his time among the Indians and Persians, _and

whom he calls the Sun_. I curse those who say _Christ is the

Sun_, and who make prayers to the _Sun_, and who do not pray

to the true God, only towards the East, but who turn

themselves round, following the motions of the Sun with their

innumerable supplications. _I curse those person who say that

Zarades and Budas and Christ and the Sun are all one and the

same._"

There are not many circumstances more striking than that of Christ Jesus

being originally worshiped under the form of a LAMB--the actual "Lamb of

God, which taketh away the sins of the world." As we have already seen

(in Chap. XX.), it was not till the Council of Constantinople, called

_In Trullo_, held so late as the year 707, that pictures of Christ Jesus

were ordered to be drawn in the form of a man. It was ordained that, in

the place of the figure of a LAMB, the symbol used to that time, the

figure of a man nailed to a cross, should in future be used.[503:1] From

this decree, the identity of the worship of the _Celestial Lamb_ and the

Christian Saviour is certified beyond the possibility of doubt, and the

mode by which the ancient superstitions were propagated is

satisfactorily shown. Nothing can more clearly prove the general

practice than the order of a council to regulate it.

The worship of the constellation of _Aries_ was the worship of the Sun

in his passage through that sign. "This constellation was called by the

ancients the _Lamb of God_. He was also called the _Saviour_, and was

said to save mankind from their sins. He was always honored with the

appellation of _Dominus_ or _Lord_. He was called _The Lamb of God which

taketh away the sins of the world_. The devotees addressed him in their

litany, constantly repeating the words, '_O Lamb of God, that taketh

away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us. Grant us thy peace._'"

On an ancient medal of the _Phenicians_, brought by Dr. Clark from

Citium (and described in his "Travels," vol. ii. ch. xi.) this _Lamb of

God_ is described with the CROSS and the ROSARY, which shows that they

were both used in his worship.

Yearly the SUN-GOD, as the zodiacal horse (Aries) was supposed by the

Vedic Aryans _to die to save all flesh_. Hence the practice of

sacrificing horses. The "guardian spirits" of the prince Sakya Buddha

sing the following hymn:

"Once when thou wast the _white horse_,[504:1]

In pity for the suffering of man,

Thou didst fly across heaven to the region of the evil demons,

_To secure the happiness of mankind_.

Persecutions without end,

Revilings and many prisons,

_Death and murder_;

These hast thou suffered with love and patience,

_Forgiving thine executioners_."[504:2]

We have seen, in Chapter XXXIII., that Christ Jesus was also symbolized

as a _Fish_, and that it is to be seen on all the ancient Christian

monuments. But what has the Christian Saviour to do with a _Fish_? Why

was he called a _Fish_? The answer is, _because the fish was another

emblem of the_ SUN. Abarbanel says:

"The sign of his (Christ's) coming is the junction of Saturn

and Jupiter, _in the Sign Pisces_."[504:3]

Applying the astronomical emblem of _Pisces_ to Jesus, does not seem

more absurd than applying the astronomical emblem of the Lamb. They

applied to him the monogram of the Sun, IHS, the astronomical and

alchemical sign of Aries, or the ram, or Lamb [Symbol: Aries]; and, in

short, what was there that was _Heathenish_ that they have not applied

to him?

The preserving god Vishnu, the Sun, was represented as a fish, and so

was the Syrian Sun-god Dagon, who was also a Preserver or Saviour. The

Fish was sacred among many nations of antiquity, and is to be seen on

their monuments. Thus we see that everything at last centres in the SUN.

Constantine, the first Christian emperor, had on his _coins_ the figure

of the Sun, with the legend: "To the Invincible Sun, my companion and

guardian," as being a representation, says Mr. King, "either of the

ancient Phoebus, _or the_ new _Sun of Righteousness_, equally acceptable

to both Christian and Gentile, from the double interpretation of which

the type was susceptible."[505:1]

The worship of the Sun, under the name of Mithra, "long survived in

Rome, _under the Christian emperors_, and, doubtless, much longer in the

remoter districts of the semi-independent provinces."[505:2]

[Illustration: Fig. No. 41]

_Christ_ Jesus is represented with a halo of glory surrounding his head,

a florid complexion, long golden locks of hair, and a flowing robe. Now,

all _Sun_-gods, from Crishna of India (Fig. No. 41) to Baldur of

Scandinavia, are represented with a halo of glory surrounding their

heads, and the flowing locks of golden hair, and the flowing robe, are

not wanting.[505:3] By a process of metaphor, the rays of the Sun were

changed into golden hair, into spears and lances, and robes of light.

From the shoulders of Phoibus Lykêgenes, the light-born, flow the sacred

locks over which no razor might pass. On the head of Nisos, as on that

of Samson, they became a palladium invested with a mysterious power.

From Helios, the Sun, who can scorch as well as warm, comes the robe of

Medeia, which appears in the poisoned garments of Deianeira.[506:1]

We see, then, that _Christ_ Jesus, like _Christ_ Buddha,[506:2] Crishna,

Mithra, Osiris, Horus, Apollo, Hercules and others, is none other than a

personification of the Sun, and that the Christians, like their

predecessors the Pagans, are really Sun worshipers. It must not be

inferred, however, that we advocate the theory that no such person as

_Jesus of Nazareth_ ever lived in the flesh. The _man_ Jesus is

evidently an historical personage, just as the Sakaya prince Buddha,

Cyrus, King of Persia, and Alexander, King of Macedonia, are historical

personages; but the _Christ_ Jesus, the _Christ_ Buddha, the mythical

Cyrus, and the mythical Alexander, _never lived in the flesh_. The

_Sun-myth_ has been added to the histories of these personages, in a

greater or less degree, just as it has been added to the history of many

other real personages. If it be urged that the attribution to Christ

Jesus of qualities or powers belonging to the Pagan deities would hardly

seem reasonable, the answer must be that nothing is done in his case

which has not been done in the case of almost every other member of the

great company of the gods. The tendency of myths to _reproduce

themselves_, with differences only of _names_ and _local coloring_,

becomes especially manifest after perusing the legendary histories of

the gods of antiquity. It is a fact demonstrated by history, that when

one nation of antiquity came in contact with another, _they adopted each

other's myths without hesitation_. After the Jews had been taken

captives to Babylon, around the history of _their King Solomon_

accumulated the fables which were related of _Persian heroes_. When the

fame of Cyrus and Alexander became known over the then known world, the

popular _Sun-myth_ was interwoven with their true history. The mythical

history of Perseus is, in all its essential features, the history of the

Attic hero Theseus, and of the Theban OEdipus, and they all reappear

with heightened colors in the myths of Hercules. We have the same thing

again in the mythical and religious history of Crishna; it is, in nearly

all its essential features, the history of Buddha, and reappears again,

with heightened colors, in the history of _Christ_ Jesus. The myths of

Buddha and Jesus differ from the legends of the other virgin-born

Saviours only in the fact that in their cases it has gathered round

unquestionably historical personages. In other words, an old myth has

been added to names undoubtedly historical. But it cannot be too often

repeated that from the _myth_ we learn nothing of their history. How

much we really know of the man Jesus will be considered in our next, and

last, chapter.[507:1] That his biography, as recorded in the books of

the New Testament, contains some few grains of actual history, is all

that the historian or philosopher can rationally venture to urge. But

the very process which has stripped these legends of all value as a

chronicle of actual events has invested them with a new interest. Less

than ever are they worthless fictions which the historian or philosopher

may afford to despise. These legends of the birth, life, and death of

the Sun, present to us a form of society and a condition of thought

through which all mankind had to pass before the dawn of history. Yet

that state of things was as real as the time in which we live. They who

spoke the language of these early tales were men and women with joys and

sorrows not unlike our own. In the following verses of Martianus

Capella, the universal veneration for the Sun is clearly shown:

"Latium invokes thee, _Sol_, because thou alone art in honor,

_after the Father_, the centre of light; and they affirm that

thy sacred head bears a golden brightness in twelve rays,

because thou formest that number of months and that number of

hours. They say that thou guidest four winged steeds, because

thou alone rulest the chariot of the elements. For, dispelling

the darkness, thou revealest the shining heavens. Hence they

esteem thee, Phoebus, the discoverer of the secrets of the

future; or, because thou preventest nocturnal crimes. Egypt

worships thee as Serapis, and Memphis as Osiris. Thou art

worshiped by different rites as Mithra, Dis, and the cruel

Typhon. Thou art alone the beautiful Atys, and the fostering

son of the bent plough. Thou art the Ammon of arid Libya, and

the Adonis of Byblos. _Thus under a varied appellation the

whole world worship thee._ Hail! thou true image of the gods,

and of thy father's face! thou whose sacred name, surname, and

omen, three letters make to agree with the number 608.[507:2]

Grant us, oh Father, to reach the eternal intercourse of mind,

and to know the starry heaven under this sacred name. May the

great and universally adorable Father increase these his

favors."

FOOTNOTES:

[467:1] "In the _Vedas_, the _Sun_ has twenty different names, not pure

equivalents, but each term descriptive of the Sun in one of its aspects.

It is brilliant (Sûrya), the friend (Mitra), generous (Aryaman),

beneficent (Bhaga), that which nourishes (Pûshna), the Creator

(Tvashtar), the master of the sky (Divaspati), and so on." (Rev. S.

Baring-Gould: Orig. Relig. Belief, vol. i. p. 150.)

[467:2] Asiatic Researches, vol. i. p. 267.

[468:1] Preface to "Tales of Anct. Greece."

[468:2] See Appendix B.

[469:1] Aryan Mytho., vol. ii. pp. 51-53.

[473:1] Müller: Origin of Religions, pp. 264-268.

[473:2] John, i. 9.

[473:3] The Christian ceremonies of the Nativity are celebrated in

Bethlehem and Rome, even at the present time, _very early in the

morning_.

[474:1] Quoted by Volney, Ruins, p. 166, and _note_.

[474:2] See Ibid. and Dupuis: Origin of Religious Belief, p. 236.

[474:3] See Chap. XXXIV.

[474:4] The _Dawn_ was _personified_ by the ancients--a _virgin mother_,

who bore the _Sun_. (See Max Müller's Chips, vol. ii. p. 137. Fiske's

Myths and Mythmakers, p. 156, and Cox: Tales of Ancient Greece, and

Aryan Mytho.)

[474:5] In Sanscrit "Idâ" is the _Earth_, the wife of Dyaus (the Sky),

and so we have before us the mythical phrase, "the _Sun_ at its birth

rests on the earth." In other words, "the Sun at birth is nursed in the

lap of its mother."

[474:6] "The moment we understand the _nature_ of a myth, all

impossibilities, contradictions and immoralities disappear. If a

mythical personage be nothing more than a name of the _Sun_, his birth

may be derived from ever so many different mothers. He may be the son of

the _Sky_ or of the _Dawn_ or of the _Sea_ or of the _Night_." (Renouf's

Hibbert Lectures, p. 108.)

[474:7] "The sign of the _Celestial Virgin_ rises above the horizon at

the moment in which we fix the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ."

(Higgins: Anacalypsis, vol. i. p. 314, and Bonwick: Egyptian Belief, p.

147.)

"We have in the first decade the _Sign of the Virgin_, following the

most ancient tradition of the Persians, the Chaldeans, the Egyptians,

Hermes and Æsculapius, a young woman called in the Persian language,

_Seclinidos de Darzama_; in the Arabic, _Aderenedesa_--that is to say, a

chaste, pure, immaculate virgin, suckling an infant, which some nations

call _Jesus_ (_i. e._, Saviour), but which we in Greek call _Christ_."

(Abulmazer.)

"In the first decade of the Virgin, rises a maid, called in Arabic,

'Aderenedesa,' that is: 'pure immaculate virgin,' graceful in person,

charming in countenance, modest in habit, with loosened hair, holding in

her hands two ears of wheat, sitting upon an embroidered throne, nursing

a BOY, and rightly feeding him in the place called _Hebraea_. A boy, I

say, names IESSUS by certain nations, which signifies Issa, whom they

also call _Christ_ in Greek." (Kircher, OEdipus Ægypticus.)

[475:1] Max Müller: Origin of Religions, p. 261.

[475:2] Ibid. p. 230.

[475:3] "With scarcely an exception, all the names by which the _Virgin

goddess_ of the Akropolis was known point to this mythology of the

_Dawn_." (Cox: Aryan Myths, vol. i. p. 228.)

[475:4] We also read in the Vishnu Purana that: "The Sun of Achyuta

(God, the Imperishable) _rose in the dawn of Devaki_, to cause the lotus

petal of the universe (_Crishna_) to expand. On the day of his birth the

quarters of the horizon were irradiate with joy," &c.

[475:5] Cox: Aryan Myths, vol. iii. pp. 105, and 130, vol. ii.

[475:6] Ibid. p. 133. See Legends in Chap. XVI.

[475:7] Fiske: Myths and Mythmakers, p. 113.

[476:1] Renouf: Hibbert Lectures, p. 111 and 161.

[476:2] Ibid. p. 161 and 179.

[476:3] Ibid. pp. 179.

[476:4] See Tales of Ancient Greece, pp. xxxi. and 82.

[476:5] The _Bull_ symbolized the productive force in nature, and hence

it was associated with the SUN-gods. This animal was venerated by nearly

all the peoples of antiquity. (Wake: Phallism in Anct. Religs., p. 45.)

[476:6] See Aryan Myths, vol. i. p. 229.

[477:1] See Chap. XXXII.

[477:2] See Tales of Ancient Greece, p. xviii.

[477:3] "The idea entertained by the ancients that these god-begotten

heroes were engendered without any carnal intercourse, and that they

were the sons of Jupiter, is, in plain language, the result of the

ethereal spirit, _i. e._, the Holy Spirit, operating on the virgin

mother _Earth_." (Knight: Ancient Art and Mythology, p. 156.)

[477:4] Cox: Aryan Myths, p. 87.

[477:5] See Williams' Hinduism, p. 24, and Müller's Chips, vol. ii. pp.

277 and 290.

[477:6] See Bulfinch, p. 389.

[477:7] See Renouf's Hibbert Lectures, pp. 110, 111.

[477:8] Manners of the Germans, p. xi.

[478:1] See Knight: Ancient Art and Mythology, pp. 81, 99, and 166.

The Moon was called by the ancients, "The Queen;" "The Highest

Princess;" "The Queen of Heaven;" "The Princess and Queen of Heaven;"

&c. She was Istar, Ashera, Diana, Artemis, Isis, Juno, Lucina, Astartê.

(Goldzhier, pp. 158. Knight, pp. 99, 100.)

In the beginning of the eleventh book of Apuleius' Metamorphosis, Isis

is represented as addressing him thus: "I am present; I who am _Nature_,

the parent of things, queen of all the elements, &c., &c. The primitive

Phrygians called me _Pressinuntica, the mother of the gods_; the native

Athenians, Ceropian Minerva; the floating Cyprians, Paphian Venus; the

arrow-bearing Cretans, Dictymian Diana; the three-tongued Sicilians,

Stygian Proserpine; and the inhabitants of Eleusis, the ancient goddess

Ceres. Some again have invoked me as _Juno_, others as _Beliona_, others

as Hecate, and others as Rhamnusia: and those who are enlightened by the

emerging rays of the rising _Sun_, the Ethiopians, Ariians and

Egyptians, powerful in ancient learning, who reverence my divinity with

ceremonies perfectly proper, call me by a true appellation, '_Queen

Isis_.'" (Taylor's Mysteries, p. 76.)

[478:2] The "God the Father" of all nations of antiquity was nothing

more than a personification of the _Sky_ or the _Heavens_. "The term

_Heaven_ (pronounced _Thien_) is used everywhere in the Chinese classics

for the _Supreme Power_, ruling and governing all the affairs of men

with an omnipotent and omniscient righteousness and goodness." (James

Legge.)

In one of the Chinese sacred books--the Shu-king--_Heaven_ and _Earth_

are called "Father and Mother of all things." Heaven being the Father,

and Earth the Mother. (Taylor: Primitive Culture, pp. 294-296.)

The "God the Father" of the Indians is _Dyaus_, that is, the _Sky_.

(Williams' Hinduism, p. 24.)

Ormuzd, the god of the ancient Persians, was a personification of the

sky. Herodotus, speaking of the Persians, says: "They are accustomed to

ascend the highest part of the mountains, and offer sacrifice to Jupiter

(Ormuzd), _and they call the whole circle of the heavens by the name of

Jupiter_." (Herodotus, book 1, ch. 131.)

In Greek iconography Zeus is the _Heaven_. As Cicero says: "The

refulgent Heaven above is that which all men call, unanimously, Jove."

The Christian God supreme of the nineteenth century is still _Dyaus_

Pitar, the "Heavenly Father."

[478:3] Williams' Hinduism, p. 24.

[478:4] Müller: Origin of Religions, pp. 261, 290.

[478:5] Renouf: Hibbert Lectures, pp. 110, 111.

[478:6] See Note 2.

[478:7] See Cox: Tales of Ancient Greece, pp. xxxi. and 82, and Aryan

Mythology, vol. i. p. 229.

[479:1] Quoted by Westropp: Phallic Worship, p. 24.

[479:2] Squire: Serpent Symbol, p. 66. "In Phenician Mythology Ouranos

(Heaven) weds Ghe (the Earth) and by her becomes father of Oceanus,

Hyperon, Iapetus, Cronos, and other gods." (Phallic Worship, p. 26.)

[479:3] Squire: Serpent Symbol, p. 64.

[479:4] See Mallet's Northern Antiquities, pp. 80, 93, 94, 406, 510,

511.

[480:1] See Chap. XIV.

[480:2] See Dupuis: Orig. Relig. Belief, p. 234. Higgins' Anacalypsis,

vol. ii. pp. 96, 97, and Prog. Relig. Ideas, vol. i. p. 272.

[480:3] Extracts from the Vedas. Müller's Chips, vol. ii. pp. 96 and

187.

[481:1] Cox: Aryan Mythology, vol. i. p. 153.

[481:2] Aryan Mythology, vol. ii. p. 133.

[481:3] When Christ Jesus was born, on a sudden there was a great light

in the cave, so that their eyes could not bear it. (Protevangelion,

Apoc. ch. xiv.)

[481:4] "Perseus, Oidipous, Romulus and Cyrus are doomed to bring ruin

on their parents. They are exposed in their infancy on the hill-side,

and rescued by a shepherd. _All the solar heroes begin life in this

way._ Whether, like Apollo, born of the dark night (Leto), or like

Oidipous, of the violet dawn (Iokaste), they are alike destined to bring

destruction on their parents, as the Night and the Dawn are both

destroyed by the Sun." (Fiske: p. 198.)

[481:5] "The exposure of the child in infancy represents the long rays

of the morning sun resting on the hill-side." (Fiske: Myths and

Mythmakers, p. 198.)

The Sun-hero Paris is exposed on the slopes of Ida, Oidipous on the

slopes of Kithairon, and Æsculapius on that of the mountain of Myrtles.

This is the rays of the newly-born sun resting on the mountain-side.

(Cox: Aryan Myths, vol. i. pp. 64 and 80.)

In Sanscrit _Ida_ is the Earth, and so we have the mythical phrase, the

Sun at its birth is exposed on Ida--the hill-side. The light of the sun

must rest on the hill-side long before it reaches the dells beneath.

(See Cox: vol. i. p. 221, and Fiske: p. 114.)

[482:1] Even as late as the seventeenth century, a German writer would

illustrate a thunder-storm destroying a crop of corn, by a picture of a

dragon devouring the produce of the field with his flaming tongue and

iron teeth. (See Fiske: Myths and Mythmakers, p. 17, and Cox: Aryan

Mythology, vol. ii.)

[482:2] The history of the Saviour Hercules is so similar to that of the

Saviour Christ Jesus, that the learned Dr. Parkhurst was forced to say,

"The labors of Hercules seem to have been originally designed as

emblematic memorials of what the REAL Son of God, the Saviour of the

world, was to do and suffer for our sakes, _bringing a cure for all our

ills_, as the Orphic hymn speaks of Hercules."

[482:3] Bonwick's Egyptian Belief, pp. 158, 166, and 168.

[482:4] In ancient mythology, all heroes of light were opposed by the

"Old Serpent," the Devil, symbolized by Serpents, Dragons, Sphinxes and

other monsters. The Serpent was, among the ancient Eastern nations, the

symbol of _Evil_, of _Winter_, of _Darkness_ and of _Death_. It also

symbolized the _dark cloud_, which, by harboring the _rays of the Sun_,

preventing its shining, and therefore, is apparently _attempting to

destroy it_. The Serpent is one of the chief mystic personifications of

the _Rig-Veda_, under the names of _Ahi_, _Suchna_, and others. They

represent the _Cloud_, the enemy of the _Sun_, keeping back the

fructifying rays. Indra struggles victoriously against him, and spreads

life on the earth, with the shining warmth of the Father of Life, the

Creator, _the Sun_.

Buddha, the Lord and Saviour, was described as a superhuman organ of

light, to whom a superhuman organ of darkness, Mara, the Evil Serpent,

was opposed. He, like _Christ_ Jesus, resisted the temptations of this

evil one, and is represented sitting on a serpent, as if its conqueror.

(See Bunsen's Angel-Messiah, p. 39.)

Crishna also overcame the evil one, and is represented "bruising the

head of the serpent," and standing upon it. (See vol. i. of Asiatic

Researches, and vol. ii. of Higgins' Anacalypsis.)

In Egyptian Mythology, one of the names of the god-_Sun_ was _Râ_. He

had an adversary who was called _Apap_, represented in the form of a

serpent. (See Renouf's Hibbert Lectures, p. 109.)

Horus, the Egyptian incarnate god, the Mediator, Redeemer and Saviour,

is represented in Egyptian art as overcoming the Evil Serpent, and

standing triumphantly upon him. (See Bonwick's Egyptian Belief, p. 158,

and Monumental Christianity, p. 402.)

Osiris, Ormuzd, Mithras, Apollo, Bacchus, Hercules, Indra, OEdipus,

Quetzalcoatle, and many other _Sun-gods_, overcame the Evil One, and are

represented in the above described manner. (See Cox's Tales of Ancient

Greece, p. xxvii. and Aryan Mythology, vol. ii. p. 129. Baring-Gould's

Curious Myths, p. 256. Bulfinch's Age of Fable, p. 34. Bunsen's

Angel-Messiah, p. x., and Kingsborough's Mexican Antiquities, vol. vi.

p. 176.)

[483:1] The crucifixion of the Sun-gods is simply the power of Darkness

triumphing over the "Lord of Light," and Winter overpowering the Summer.

It was at the _Winter_ solstice that the ancients wept for Tammuz, the

fair Adonis, and other Sun-gods, who were put to death by the boar,

slain by the thorn of winter. (See Cox: Aryan Mythology, vol. ii. p.

113.)

Other versions of the same myth tell us of Eurydike stung to death by

the hidden serpent, of Sifrit smitten by Hagene (the Thorn), of

Isfendiyar slain by the thorn or arrow of Rustem, of Achilleus

vulnerable only in the heel, of Brynhild enfolded within the dragon's

coils, of Meleagros dying as the torch of doom is burnt out, of Baldur,

the brave and pure, smitten by the fatal mistletoe, and of Crishna and

others being crucified.

In Egyptian mythology, Set, the destroyer, triumphs in the _West_. He is

the personification of _Darkness_ and _Winter_, and the Sun-god whom he

puts to death, is Horus the Saviour. (See Renouf's Hibbert Lectures, pp.

112-115.)

[483:2] "In the _Rig-Veda_ the god _Vishnu_ is often named as a

manifestation of the _Solar_ energy, or rather as a form of the Sun."

(Indian Wisdom, p. 322.)

[483:3] Crishna says: "I am Vishnu, Brahma, _Indra_, and the source as

well as the destruction of things, the creator and the annihilator of

the whole aggregate of existences." (Cox: Aryan Mythology, vol. ii. p.

131.)

[484:1] See Chap. XX.

[484:2] _Indra_, who was represented as a crucified god, is also the

_Sun_. No sooner is he born than he speaks to his mother. Like Apollo

and all other Sun-gods he has _golden locks_, and like them he is

possessed of an inscrutable wisdom. He is also born of a virgin--the

Dawn. Crishna and Indra are one. (See Cox: Aryan Mythology, vol. i. pp.

88 and 341; vol. ii. p. 131.)

[484:3] Wake: Phallism, &c., p. 55.

[484:4] See Cox: Aryan Mythology, vol. ii. p. 113.

[484:5] Ibid. pp. 115 and 125.

[484:6] See Bonwick's Egyptian Belief, p. 157.

[484:7] Knight: Ancient Art and Mythology, p. 88.

A great number of the Solar heroes or Sun-gods are forced to endure

being bound, which indicates the tied-up power of the sun in winter.

(Goldzhier: Hebrew Mythology, p. 406.)

[484:8] The Sun, as climbing the heights of heaven, is an arrogant

being, given to making exorbitant claims, who must be bound to the fiery

cross. "The phrases which described the Sun as revolving daily on his

four-spoked _cross_, or as doomed to sink in the sky when his orb had

reached the zenith, would give rise to the stories of _Ixion_ on his

flaming wheel." (Cox: Aryan Mythology, vol. ii. p. 27.)

[484:9] "So was Ixion bound on the fiery wheel, and the sons of men see

the flaming spokes day by day as it whirls in the high heaven."

[485:1] Cox: Tales of Ancient Greece, p. xxxii.

[485:2] Ibid. p. xxxiii.

[485:3] "That the story of the Trojan war is almost wholly mythical, has

been conceded even by the stoutest champions of Homeric unity." (Rev. G.

W. Cox.)

[485:4] See Müller's Science of Religion, p. 186.

[485:5] See Calmet's Fragments, vol. ii. pp. 21, 22.

[486:1] Nimrod: vol. i. p. 278, in Anac., i. p. 503.

[486:2] At Miletus was the crucified Apollo--Apollo, who overcome the

Serpent or evil principle. Thus Callimachus, celebrating this

achievement, in his hymn to Apollo, has these remarkable words:

"Thee thy blest _mother_ bore, and pleased assign'd

The willing SAVIOUR of distressed mankind."

[486:3] These words apply to _Christ_ Jesus, as well as Semiramis,

according to the Christian Father Ignatius. In his Epistle to the Church

at Ephesus, he says: "Now the virginity of Mary, and he who was born of

her, was kept in secret from the prince of this world, as was also the

death of our Lord: _three of the mysteries the most spoken of throughout

the world, yet done in secret by God_."

[487:1] The Rosicrucians, p. 260.

[487:2] Ibid.

[488:1] The Sun-gods Apollo, Indra, Wittoba or Crishna, and Christ

Jesus, are represented as having their feet pierced with nails (See Cox:

Aryan Mytho., vol. ii. p. 23, and Moor's Hindu Pantheon.)

[489:1] Knight: Anct. Art and Mytho., pp. 87, 88.

[489:2] Anacalypsis, vol. ii. p. 32.

[489:3] "This notion is quite consistent with the ideas entertained by

the Phenicians as to the Serpent, which they supposed to have the

quality of putting off its old age, and assuming a second youth."

Sanchoniathon: (Quoted by Wake: Phallism, &c., p. 43.)

[489:4] Une serpent qui tient sa queue dans sa gueule et dans le circle

qu'il decrit, ces trois lettres Greques {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER XI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}, qui sont le nombre 365. Le

Serpent, qui est d'ordinaire un emblème de l'eternetè est ici celui de

_Soleil_ et des ses revolutions. (Beausobre: Hist. de Manich. tom. ii.

p. 55. Quoted by Lardner, vol. viii. p. 379.)

"This idea existed even in _America_. The great century of the Aztecs

was encircled by _a serpent grasping its own tail_, and the great

_calendar stone_ is entwined by serpents bearing human heads in their

distended jaws."

"The annual passage of the Sun, through the signs of the zodiac, being

in an oblique path, resembles, or at least the ancients thought so, the

tortuous movements of the Serpent, and the facility possessed by this

reptile of casting off his skin and producing out of itself a new

covering every year, bore some analogy to the termination of the old

year and the commencement of the new one. Accordingly, all the ancient

spheres--the Persian, Indian, Egyptian, Barbaric, and Mexican--were

surrounded by the figure of a serpent _holding its tail in its mouth_."

(Squire: Serpent Symbol, p. 249.)

[489:5] Wake: Phallism, p. 42.

[489:6] See Cox: Aryan Mytho., vol. ii. p. 128.

[490:1] Being the most intimately connected with the reproduction of

life on earth, the _Linga_ became the symbol under which the _Sun_,

invoked with a thousand names, has been worshiped throughout the world

as the restorer of the powers of nature after the long sleep or death of

Winter. In the brazen _Serpent_ of the Pentateuch, the two emblems of

the _Cross_ and _Serpent_, the quiescent and energizing _Phallos_, are

united. (Cox: Aryan Mytho. vol. ii. pp. 113-118.)

[490:2] Wake: Phallism, &c., p. 60.

[491:1] Squire: Serpent Symbol, p. 155.

[491:2] Wake: Phallism in Anct. Religs., p. 72.

[491:3] Ibid. p. 73. Squire: Serpent Symbol, p. 195.

[491:4] Faber: Orig. Pagan Idol., in Squire, p. 158.

[491:5] Ibid.

[491:6] Kenrick's Egypt, vol. i. p. 375.

[491:7] Ibid.

[491:8] Squire: p. 161.

[491:9] Ibid. p. 185.

[492:1] Squire: p. 169.

[492:2] Lundy: Monumental Christianity, p. 185.

[492:3] "SAVIOUR was a common title of the SUN-gods of antiquity."

(Wake: Phallism in Anct. Religs., p. 55.)

The ancient Greek writers speak of the Sun, as the "Generator and

Nourisher of all Things;" the "Ruler of the World;" the "First of the

Gods," and the "Supreme Lord of all Beings." (Knight: Ancient Art and

Mytho., p. 37.)

Pausanias (500 B. C.) speaks of "The Sun having the surname of SAVIOUR."

(Ibid. p. 98, _note_.)

"There is a very remarkable figure copied in Payne Knight's Work, in

which we see on a man's shoulders a _cock's_ head, whilst on the

pediment are placed the words: "THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD." (Inman: Anct.

Faiths, vol. i. p. 537.) This refers to the SUN. The cock being the

natural herald of the day, he was therefore sacred, among the ancients,

to the Sun." (See Knight: Anct. Art and Mytho., p. 70, and Lardner: vol.

viii. p. 377.)

[493:1] The name _Jesus_ is the same as _Joshua_, and signifies

_Saviour_.

[493:2] Justin Martyr: Dialog. Cum Typho. Quoted in Gibbon's Rome, vol.

i. p. 582.

[493:3] Matt. xxvii. 55.

[493:4] The ever-faithful woman who is always near at the death of the

Sun-god is "the fair and tender light which sheds its soft hue over the

Eastern heaven as the Sun sinks in death beneath the Western waters."

(Cox: Aryan Myths, vol. i. p. 223.)

[493:5] See Ibid. vol. i. p. 80.

[493:6] Bunsen: The Angel-Messiah, p. 49.

[493:7] Cox: Aryan Mythology, vol. i. p. 223.

[494:1] See Tales of Ancient Greece, p. xxxi.

[494:2] PETRÆUS was an interchangeable synonym of the name Oceanus.

[494:3] "Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far

from thee, Lord, this shall not be unto thee." (Matt. xvi. 22.)

[494:4] See Potter's Æschylus.

[494:5] Matt. xxvii. 45.

[494:6] As the Sun dies, or sinks in the West, blacker and blacker grows

the evening shades, till there is darkness on the face of the earth.

Then from the high heavens comes down the thick clouds, and the din of

its thunder crashes through the air. (Description of the death of

Hercules, Tales of Ancient Greece, pp. 61, 62.)

[494:7] It Is the battle of the clouds over the dead or dying Sun, which

is to be seen in the legendary history of many Sun-gods. (Cox: Aryan

Mythology, vol. ii. p. 91.)

[494:8] This was one of the latest additions of the Sun-myth to the

history of _Christ_ Jesus. This has been proved not only to have been an

invention after the Apostles' time, but even after the time of Eusebius

(A. D. 325). The doctrine of the descent into hell was not in the

ancient creeds or rules of faith. It is not to be found in the rules of

faith delivered by Irenæus (A. D. 190), by Origen (A. D. 230), or by

Tertullian (A. D. 200-210). It is not expressed in those creeds which

were made by the Councils as larger explications of the Apostles' Creed;

not in the Nicene, or Constantinopolitan; not in those of Ephesus, or

Chalcedon; not in those confessions made at Sardica, Antioch, Selencia,

Sirmium, &c.

[495:1] At the end of his career, the Sun enters the _lowest regions_,

the bowels of the earth, therefore nearly all Sun-gods are made to

"descend into hell," and remain there for three days and three nights,

for the reason that from the 22d to the 25th of December, the Sun

apparently remains in the same place. Thus Jonah, a personification of

the Sun (see Chap. IX.), who remains three days and three nights in the

bowels of the earth--typified by a fish--is made to pay: "Out of the

belly of hell cried I, and thou heardst my voice."

[495:2] See Chapter XXII.

[495:3] Baring-Gould: Curious Myths, p. 260.

"The mighty Lord appeared in the form of a man, and enlightened those

places which had ever before been in darkness; and broke asunder the

fetters which before could not be broken; and with his _invincible

power_ visited those who sat in the deep darkness by iniquity, and the

shadow of death by sin. Then the King of Glory trampled upon Death,

seized the Prince of Hell, and deprived him of all his power."

(Description of _Christ's_ Descent into Hell. Nicodemus: Apoc.)

[495:4] "The women weeping for Tammuz was no more than expressive of the

Sun's loss of power in the winter quarter." (King's Gnostics, p. 102.

See also, Cox: Aryan Mytho., vol. ii. p. 113.)

After remaining for three days and three nights in the lowest regions,

the Sun begins to ascend, thus he "rises from the dead," as it were, and

"ascends into heaven."

[496:1] Bonwick: Egyptian Belief, p. 174.

[496:2] Anacalypsis, vol. ii. p. 100.

[496:3] Aryan Mythology, vol. ii. p. 125.

[496:4] Egyptian Belief, p. 182.

[496:5] Ibid.

[496:6] Origin of Religions, p. 264.

[497:1] Origin of Religions, p. 268.

[497:2] Aryan Mythology, vol. i. p. 384.

[497:3] Origin of Religion, pp. 264-268.

[498:1] The number twelve appears in many of the Sun-myths. It refers to

the twelve hours of the day or night, or the twelve moons of the lunar

year. (Cox: Aryan Mythology, vol. i. p. 165. Bonwick: Egyptian Belief,

p. 175.)

Osiris, the Egyptian Saviour, had twelve apostles. (Bonwick, p. 175.)

In all religions of antiquity the number _twelve_, which applies to the

twelve signs of the zodiac, are reproduced in all kinds and sorts of

forms. For instance: such are the _twelve_ great gods; the _twelve_

apostles of Osiris; the _twelve_ apostles of Jesus; the _twelve_ sons of

Jacob, or the _twelve_ tribes; the _twelve_ altars of James; the

_twelve_ labors of Hercules; the _twelve_ shields of Mars; the _twelve_

brothers Arvaux; the _twelve_ gods Consents; the _twelve_ governors in

the Manichean System; the _adectyas_ of the East Indies; the _twelve_

asses of the Scandinavians; the city of the _twelve_ gates in the

Apocalypse; the _twelve_ wards of the city; the _twelve_ sacred

cushions, on which the Creator sits in the cosmogony of the Japanese;

the _twelve_ precious stones of the _rational_, or the ornament worn by

the high priest of the Jews, &c., &c. (See Dupuis, pp. 39, 40.)

[499:1] See Mallet's Northern Antiquities, p. 505.

[499:2] Luke, ii. 32.

[499:3] John, xii, 46.

[499:4] John, ix. v.

[499:5] I. John, i. 5.

[500:1] Monumental Christianity, p. 117.

[501:1] See Monumental Christianity, pp. 189, 191, 192, 238, and 296.

[501:2] See Bonwick's Egyptian Belief, p. 283.

[501:3] King's Gnostics, p. 68.

[501:4] Ibid. p. 137.

[501:5] See Chapter XX.

[501:6] Hist. of Our Lord in Art, vol. i. p. 31.

[502:1] Geikie: Life of Christ, vol. i. p. 151.

[502:2] Monumental Christianity, p. 231.

[502:3] King's Gnostics, p. 48.

[502:4] Ibid. p. 68.

[502:5] See Bell's Pantheon, vol. i. p. 13.

[503:1] Following are the words of the decree now in the Vatican

library: "In quibusdam sanctorum imaginum picturis agnus exprimitur, &c.

Nos igitur veteres figuras atque umbras, et veritatis notas, et signa

ecclesiæ tradita, complectentes, gratiam, et veritatem anteponimus, quam

ut plenitudinem legis acceptimus. Itaque id quod perfectum est, in

picturis etiam omnium oculis subjiciamus, agnum illum qui mundi peccatum

tollit, Christum Deum nostrum, loco veteris Ayni, humanâ formâ posthæ

exprimendum decrevimus," &c.

[504:1] "The _solar horse_, with two serpents upon his head (the

Buddhist Aries) is Buddha's symbol, and Aries is the symbol of Christ."

(Arthur Lillie: Buddha and Early Buddhism, p. 110.)

[504:2] Quoted by Lillie: Buddha and Early Buddhism, p. 93.

[504:3] Quoted by King: The Gnostics &c., p. 138.

[505:1] Quoted by King: The Gnostics, &c., p. 49.

[505:2] Ibid. p. 45.

[505:3] _Indra_, the crucified Sun-god of the Hindoos, was represented

with golden locks. (Cox: Aryan Myths, vol. i. p. 341.)

_Mithras_, the Persian Saviour, was represented with long flowing locks.

_Izdubar_, the god and hero of the Chaldeans, was represented with long

flowing locks of hair (Smith: Chaldean Account of Genesis, p. 193), and

so was his counterpart, the Hebrew Samson.

"The Sâkya-prince (Buddha) is described as an Aryan by Buddhistic

tradition; his face was reddish, his hair of light color and curly, his

general appearance of great beauty." (Bunsen: The Angel-Messiah, p. 15.)

"Serapis has, in some instances, long hair formally turned back, and

disposed in ringlets hanging down upon his breast and shoulders like

that of a woman. His whole person, too, is always enveloped in drapery

reaching to his feet." (Knight: Ancient Art and Mythology, p. 104.)

"As for _yellow hair_, there is no evidence that Greeks have ever

commonly possessed it; but no other color would do for a solar hero, and

it accordingly characterizes the entire company of them, wherever

found." (Fiske: Myths and Mythmakers, p. 202.)

Helios (the Sun) is called by the Greeks the "yellow-haired."

(Goldzhier: Hebrew Mytho., p. 137.)

The Sun's rays is signified by the flowing golden locks which stream

from the head of Kephalos, and fall over the shoulders of Bellerophon.

(Cox: Aryan Mytho., vol. i. p. 107.)

Perseus, son of the virgin Danae, was called the "Golden Child." (Ibid.

vol. ii. p. 58.) "The light of early morning is not more pure than was

the color on his fair cheeks, and the golden locks streamed bright over

his shoulders, like the rays of the sun when they rest on the hills at

midday." (Tales of Ancient Greece, p. 83.)

The Saviour Dionysus wore a long flowing robe, and had long golden hair,

which streamed from his head over his shoulders. (Aryan Mythology, vol.

ii. p. 293.)

Ixion was the "Beautiful and Mighty," with golden hair flashing a glory

from his head, dazzling as the rays which stream from Helios, when he

drives his chariot up the heights of heaven; and his flowing robe

glistened as he moved, like the vesture which the Sun-god gave to the

wise maiden Medeia, who dwelt in Kolchis. (Tales of Ancient Greece, p.

47.)

Theseus enters the city of Athens, as Christ Jesus is said to have

entered Jerusalem, with a long flowing robe, and with his _golden hair_

tied gracefully behind his head. His "soft beauty" excites the mockery

of the populace, who pause in their work to jest with him. (Cox: Aryan

Mythology, vol. ii. p. 63.)

Thus we see that long locks of golden hair, and a flowing robe, are

mythological attributes of the Sun.

[506:1] Cox: Aryan Mythology, vol. i. p. 49.

[506:2] We have already seen (in Chapter XX.) that the word "_Christ_"

signifies the "Anointed," or the "Messiah," and that many other

personages beside Jesus of Nazareth had this _title_ affixed to their

names.

[507:1] The theory which has been set forth in this chapter, is also

more fully illustrated in Appendix C.

[507:2] These three letters, _the monogram of the Sun_, are the

celebrated I. H. S., which are to be seen in Roman Catholic churches at

the present day, and which are now the monogram of the Sun-god _Christ_

Jesus. (See Chapter XXXVI.)

CHAPTER XL.

CONCLUSION.

We now come to the last, but certainly not least, question to be

answered; which is, what do we really know of the man Jesus of Nazareth?

How much of the Gospel narratives can we rely upon as fact?

Jesus of Nazareth is so enveloped in the mists of the past, and his

history so obscured by legend, that it may be compared to footprints in

the sand. We know _some one_ has been there, but as to what manner of

man he may have been, we certainly know little as fact. The Gospels,

_the only records we have of him_,[508:1] have been proven, over and

over again, unhistorical and legendary; to state _anything as positive_

about the man is nothing more nor less than _assumption_; we can

therefore _conjecture_ only. Liberal writers philosophize and wax

eloquent to little purpose, when, after demolishing the historical

accuracy of the New Testament, they end their task by eulogizing the man

Jesus, claiming for him the _highest_ praise, and asserting that he was

the _best_ and _grandest_ of our race;[508:2] but this manner of

reasoning (undoubtedly consoling to many) _facts_ do not warrant. We may

consistently revere his name, and place it in the long list of the great

and noble, the reformers and religious teachers of the past, all of whom

have done their part in bringing about the freedom we now enjoy, but to

go beyond this, is, to our thinking, unwarranted.

If the life of Jesus of Nazareth, as related in the books of the New

Testament, be in part the story of a man who really lived and suffered,

that story has been so interwoven with images borrowed from myths of a

bygone age, as to conceal forever any fragments of history which may lie

beneath them. Gautama Buddha was undoubtedly an historical personage,

yet the Sun-god myth has been added to his history to such an extent

that we really know nothing positive about him. Alexander the Great was

an historical personage, yet his history is one mass of legends. So it

is with Julius Cesar, Cyrus, King of Persia, and scores of others. "The

story of Cyrus' perils in infancy belongs to _solar_ mythology as much

as the stories of the magic slipper, of Charlemagne and Barbarossa. His

grandfather, Astyages, is purely a mythical creation, his name being

identical with that of the night demon, Azidahaka, who appears in the

Shah-Nameh as the biting serpent."

The actual Jesus is inaccessible to scientific research. His image

cannot be recovered. He left no memorial in writing of himself; his

followers were illiterate; the mind of his age was confused. Paul

received only traditions of him, how definite we have no means of

knowing, apparently not significant enough to be treasured, nor

consistent enough to oppose a barrier to his own speculations. As M.

Renan says: "The Christ who communicates private revelations to him _is

a phantom of his own making_;" "it is _himself_ he listens to, _while

fancying that he hears Jesus_."[509:1]

In studying the writings of the early advocates of Christianity, and

Fathers of the Christian Church, where we would naturally look for the

language that would indicate the real occurrence of the facts of the

Gospel--if real occurrences they had ever been--we not only find no such

language, but everywhere find every sort of sophistical ambages,

ramblings from the subject, and evasions of the very business before

them, as if on purpose to balk our research, and insult our skepticism.

If we travel to the very sepulchre of Christ Jesus, it is only to

discover that he was never there: _history_ seeks evidence of his

existence as a man, but finds no more trace of it than of the shadow

that flits across the wall. "The Star of Bethlehem" shone not upon _her_

path, and the order of the universe was suspended without _her_

observation.

She asks, with the Magi of the East, "Where is he that is born King of

the Jews?" and, like them, finds no solution of her inquiry, but the

guidance that guides as well to one place as another; descriptions that

apply to Æsculapius, Buddha and Crishna, as well as to Jesus;

prophecies, without evidence that they were ever prophesied; miracles,

which those who are said to have seen, are said also to have denied

seeing; narratives without authorities, facts without dates, and records

without names. In vain do the so-called disciples of Jesus point to the

passages in Josephus and Tacitus;[510:1] in vain do they point to the

spot on which he was crucified; to the fragments of the true cross, or

the nails with which he was pierced, and to the _tomb_ in which he was

laid. Others have done as much for scores of _mythological personages_

who never lived in the flesh. Did not Damus, the beloved disciple of

Apollonius of Tyana, while on his way to India, see, on Mt. Caucasus,

the identical chains with which Prometheus had been bound to the rocks?

Did not the Scythians[510:2] say that Hercules had visited their

country? and did they not show the print of his foot upon a rock to

substantiate their story?[510:3] Was not his _tomb_ to be seen at Cadiz,

where his _bones_ were shown?[510:4] Was not the _tomb_ of Bacchus to be

seen in Greece?[510:5] Was not the _tomb_ of Apollo to be seen at

Delphi?[510:6] Was not the _tomb_ of Achilles to be seen at Dodona,

where Alexander the Great honored it by placing a crown upon it?[510:7]

Was not the _tomb_ of Æsculapius to be seen in Arcadia, in a grove

consecrated to him, near the river Lusius?[510:8] Was not the _tomb_ of

Deucalion--he who was saved from the Deluge--long pointed out near the

sanctuary of Olympian Jove, in Athens?[510:9] Was not the _tomb_ of

Osiris to be seen in Egypt, where, at stated seasons, the priests went

in solemn procession, and covered it with flowers?[510:10] Was not the

tomb of Jonah--he who was "swallowed up by a big fish"--to be seen at

Nebi-Yunus, near Mosul?[510:11] Are not the _tombs_ of Adam, Eve, Cain,

Abel, Seth, Abraham, and other Old Testament characters, to be seen even

at the present day?[510:12] And did not the Emperor Constantine dedicate

a beautiful church over the _tomb_ of St. George, the warrior

saint?[510:13] Of what value, then, is such evidence of the existence of

such an individual as Jesus of Nazareth? The fact is, "the records of

his life are so very scanty, and these have been so shaped and colored

and modified by the hands of ignorance and superstition and party

prejudice and ecclesiastical purpose, that it is hard to be sure of the

original outlines."

In the first two centuries the professors of Christianity were divided

into many sects, but these might be all resolved into two divisions--one

consisting of Nazarenes, Ebionites, and orthodox; the other of

_Gnostics_, under which all the remaining sects arranged themselves. The

former are supposed to have believed in Jesus crucified, in the common,

literal acceptation of the term; the latter--believers in the _Christ_

as an _Æon_--though they admitted the crucifixion, considered it to have

been in some _mystic_ way--perhaps what might be called _spiritualiter_,

as it is called in the Revelation: but notwithstanding the different

opinions they held, they all denied that _the Christ_ did really die, in

the literal acceptation of the term, on the cross.[511:1] The Gnostic,

or Oriental, Christians undoubtedly took their doctrine from the _Indian

crucifixion_[511:2] (of which we have treated in Chapters XX. and

XXXIX.), as well as many other tenets with which we have found the

Christian Church deeply tainted. They held that:

"To deliver the soul, a captive in darkness, the 'Prince of

Light,' the 'Genius of the Sun,' charged with the redemption

of the intellectual world, of which the Sun is the type,

manifested itself among men; that the light appeared in the

darkness, but the darkness comprehended it not; that, in fact,

light could not unite with darkness; it put on only the

appearance of the human body; that at the crucifixion Christ

Jesus only _appeared_ to suffer. His person having

disappeared, the bystanders saw in his place a cross of light,

over which a celestial voice proclaimed these words; 'The

Cross of Light is called Logos, Christos, the Gate, the Joy.'"

Several of the texts of the Gospel histories were quoted with great

plausibility by the Gnostics in support of their doctrine. The story of

Jesus passing through the midst of the Jews when they were about to cast

him headlong from the brow of a hill (Luke iv. 29, 30), and when they

were going to stone him (John iii. 59; x. 31, 39), were examples not

easily refuted.

The Manichean Christian Bishop Faustus expresses himself in the

following manner:

"Do you receive the gospel? (ask ye). Undoubtedly I do! Why

then, you also admit that Christ was born? Not so; for it by

no means follows that in believing the gospel, I should

therefore believe that Christ was born! Do you then think that

he was of the Virgin Mary? Manes hath said, 'Far be it that I

should ever own that Our Lord Jesus Christ . . . . . . .'"

etc.[512:1]

Tertullian's manner of reasoning on the evidences of Christianity is

also in the same vein, as we saw in our last chapter.[512:2]

Mr. King, speaking of the Gnostic Christians, says:

"Their chief doctrines had been held for centuries before

(their time) in many of the cities in _Asia Minor_. There, it

is probable, they first came into existence as _Mystæ_, upon

the establishment of direct intercourse with _India_, under

the Seleucidæ and Ptolemies. The college of _Essenes_ and

_Megabyzæ_ at Ephesus, the _Orphics_ of Thrace, the _Curets_

of Crete, _are all merely branches of one antique and common

religion, and that originally Asiatic_."[512:3]

These early Christian Mystics are alluded to in several instances in the

New Testament. For example:

"Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come _in

the flesh_ is of God; and every spirit that confesseth not

that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God."[512:4]

"For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess

not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh."[512:5]

This is language that could not have been used, if the reality of Christ

Jesus' existence as a man could not have been denied, or, it would

certainly seem, if the apostle himself had been able to give any

evidence whatever of the claim.

The quarrels on this subject lasted for a long time among the early

Christians. _Hermas_, speaking of this, says to the brethren:

"Take heed, my children, that your dissensions deprive you not

of your lives. How will ye instruct the elect of God, when ye

yourselves want correction? Wherefore admonish one another,

and be at peace among yourselves; that I, standing before your

father, may give an account of you unto the Lord."[512:6]

_Ignatius_, in his Epistle to the Smyrnæans, says:[512:7]

"Only in the name of Jesus Christ, I undergo all, to suffer

together with him; he who was made a perfect man strengthening

me. _Whom some, not knowing, do deny_; or rather have been

denied by him, being the advocates of death, rather than of

the truth. Whom neither the prophecies, nor the law of Moses,

have persuaded; _nor the Gospel itself even to this day_, nor

the sufferings of any one of us. _For they think also the

same thing of us_; for what does a man profit me, if he shall

praise me, and blaspheme my Lord; _not confessing that he was

truly made man_?"

In his Epistle to the Philadelphians he says:[513:1]

"I have heard of some who say, _unless I find it written in

the originals_, I will not believe it to be written in the

Gospel. And when I said, It is written, they answered what lay

before them in their corrupted copies."

_Polycarp_, in his Epistle to the Philippians, says:[513:2]

"Whosoever does not confess that Jesus Christ is come in the

flesh, he is Antichrist: _and whosoever does not confess his

sufferings upon the cross_, is from the devil. And whosoever

perverts the oracles of the Lord to his own lusts; and says

that there shall neither be any resurrection, nor judgment, he

is the first-born of Satan."

_Ignatius_ says to the Magnesians:[513:3]

"Be not deceived with strange doctrines; nor with old fables

which are unprofitable. For if we still continue to live

according to the Jewish law, we do confess ourselves _not_ to

have received grace. For even the most holy prophets lived

according to Jesus Christ. . . . Wherefore if they who were

brought up in these ancient laws came nevertheless to the

newness of hope; no longer observing Sabbaths, but keeping the

Lord's Day, in which also our life is sprung up by him, and

through his death, _whom yet some deny_. By which _mystery_

we have been brought to believe, and therefore wait that

we may be found the disciples of Jesus Christ, our only

master. . . . . These things, my beloved, I write unto you,

not that I know of any among you _that be under this error_;

but as one of the least among you, I am desirous to forewarn

you that ye fall not into the snares of vain doctrine."

After reading this we can say with the writer of Timothy,[513:4]

"Without controversy, great is the MYSTERY of godliness."

Beside those who denied that Christ Jesus had ever been manifest _in the

flesh_, there were others who denied that _he_ had been

crucified.[513:5] This is seen from the words of Justin Martyr, in his

_Apology_ for the Christian Religion, written A. D. 141, where he says:

"As to the _objection_ to _our_ Jesus's being crucified, I

say, suffering was common to all the Sons of Jove."[513:6]

This is as much as to say: "_You_ Pagans claim that _your_ incarnate

gods and _Saviours_ suffered and died, then why should not _we_ claim

the same for _our_ Saviour?"

The _Koran_, referring to the _Jews_, says:

"They have not believed in Jesus, and have spoken against Mary

a grievous calumny, and have said: 'Verily we have slain

Christ Jesus, the son of Mary' (the apostle of God). _Yet they

slew him not, neither crucified him, but he was represented by

one in his likeness. And verily they who disagreed concerning

him were in a doubt as to this matter, and had no sure

knowledge thereof, but followed only an uncertain

opinion._"[514:1]

This passage alone, from the Mohammedan Bible, is sufficient to show, if

other evidence were wanting, that the early Christians "disagreed

concerning him," and that "they had no sure knowledge thereof, but

followed only an uncertain opinion."

In the books which are _now_ called _Apocryphal_, but which _were_ the

most quoted, and of equal authority with the others, and which were

_voted not_ the word of God--for obvious reasons--and were therefore

cast out of the canon, we find many allusions to the strife among the

early Christians. For instance; in the "First Epistle of Clement to the

Corinthians,"[514:2] we read as follows:

"Wherefore are there strifes, and anger, and divisions, and

schisms, and wars, among us? . . . Why do we rend and tear in

pieces the members of Christ, and raise seditions against our

own body? and are come to such a height of madness, as to

forget that we are members one of another."

In his Epistle to the Trallians, Ignatius says:[514:3]

"I exhort you, or rather not I, but the love of Jesus Christ,

that ye use none but Christian nourishment; abstaining from

pasture which is of another kind. I mean _Heresy_. For they

that are heretics, confound together the doctrine of Jesus

Christ with their own poison; whilst they seem worthy of

belief. . . . Stop your ears, therefore, as often as any one

shall speak contrary to Jesus Christ, who was of the race of

David, of the Virgin Mary. Who was _truly_ born, and did eat

and drink; was _truly_ persecuted under Pontius Pilate; was

_truly_ crucified and dead; both those in heaven and on earth,

and under the earth, being spectators of it. . . . But if, as

some who are atheists, that is to say, infidels, pretend,

_that he only seemed to suffer_, why then am I bound? Why do I

desire to fight with beasts? Therefore do I die in vain."

We find St. Paul, the very first Apostle of the Gentiles, expressly

avowing that _he was made a minister of the gospel, which had already

been preached to every creature under heaven_,[514:4] and preaching _a

God manifest in the flesh_, who had been _believed on in the

world_,[514:5] therefore, _before the commencement of his ministry_; and

who could not have been the man of Nazareth, who had certainly not been

preached, _at that time_, nor generally believed on in the world, till

ages after that time.[514:6] We find also that:

1. This Paul owns himself a _deacon_, the lowest ecclesiastical grade

of the _Therapeutan_ church.

2. The Gospel of which these Epistles speak, had been extensively

preached and fully established before the time of Jesus, by the

Therapeuts or Essenes, who believed in the doctrine of the

Angel-Messiah, the Æon from heaven.[515:1]

Leo the Great, so-called (A. D. 440-461), writes thus:

"Let those who with impious murmurings find fault with the

Divine dispensations, and who complain about the _lateness_ of

our Lord's nativity, cease from their grievances, as if what

was _carried out_ in later ages of the world, had not been

impending _in time past_. . . .

"What the Apostles preached, the prophets (in Israel) had

announced before, and what has _always been (universally)

believed_, cannot be said to have been _fulfilled_ too late.

By this delay of his work of salvation, the wisdom and love of

God have only made us more fitted for his call; so that, _what

had been announced before by many Signs and Words and

Mysteries during so many centuries_, should not be doubtful or

uncertain in the days of the gospel. . . God has not provided

for the interests of men by a _new council_ or by a _late

compassion_; but he had instituted from the beginning for all

men, _one and the same path of salvation_."[515:2]

This is equivalent to saying that, "God, in his '_late compassion_,' has

sent his Son, Christ Jesus, to save _us_, therefore do not complain or

'murmur' about 'the lateness of his coming,' for the Lord has already

provided for those who _preceded us_; he has given them '_the same path

of salvation_' by sending to _them_, as he has sent to _us_, a

_Redeemer_ and a _Saviour_."

Justin Martyr, in his dialogue with Typho,[515:3] makes a similar

confession (as we have already seen in our last chapter), wherein he

says that there exists not a people, civilized or semi-civilized, who

have not offered up prayers in the name of a _crucified Saviour_ to the

Father and Creator of all things.

Add to this medley the fact that St. Irenæus (A. D. 192), one of the

most celebrated, most respected, and most quoted of the early Christian

Fathers, tells us on the authority of his master, Polycarp, who had it

from St. John himself, and from all the old people of Asia, that Jesus

was not crucified at the time stated in the Gospels, but that he lived

to be nearly _fifty_ years old. The passage which, most fortunately, has

escaped the destroyers of all such evidence, is to be found in Irenæus'

second book against heresies,[515:4] of which the following is a

portion:

"As the chief part of thirty years belongs to youth, and

every one will confess him to be such till the fortieth year:

but from the fortieth year to the fiftieth he declines into

old age, _which our Lord (Jesus) having attained he taught us

the Gospel, and all the elders who, in Asia, assembled with

John, the disciple of the Lord, testify; and as John himself

had taught them_. And he (John?) remained with them till the

time of Trajan. And some of them saw not only John but other

Apostles, _and heard the same thing from them, and bear the

same testimony to this revelation_."

The escape of this passage from the destroyers can be accounted for only

in the same way as the passage of Minucius Felix (quoted in Chapter XX.)

concerning the Pagans worshiping a crucifix. These two passages escaped

from among, probably, hundreds destroyed, of which we know nothing,

under the decrees of the emperors, yet remaining, by which they were

ordered to be destroyed.

In John viii. 56, Jesus is made to say to the Jews: "Your father Abraham

rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it and was glad." Then said the Jews

unto him: "Thou art not yet _fifty_ years old, and hast thou seen

Abraham?"

If Jesus was then but about _thirty_ years of age, the Jews would

evidently have said: "thou art not yet _forty_ years old," and would not

have been likely to say: "thou art not yet _fifty_ years old," unless he

was past forty.

There was a tradition current among the early Christians, that _Annas_

was high-priest when Jesus was crucified. This is evident from the

_Acts_.[516:1] Now, Annas, or Ananias, _was not high-priest until about

the year 48 A. D._;[516:2] therefore, if Jesus was crucified at that

time he must have been about _fifty_ years of age;[516:3] but, as we

remarked elsewhere, there exists, outside of the New Testament, no

evidence whatever, in book, inscription, or monument, that Jesus of

Nazareth was either scourged or crucified under Pontius Pilate.

Josephus, Tacitus, Plinius, Philo, nor any of their contemporaries, ever

refer to the fact of this crucifixion, or express any belief

thereon.[516:4] In the Talmud--the book containing Jewish

traditions--Jesus is not referred to as the "crucified one," but as the

"hanged one,"[516:5] while elsewhere it is narrated he was _stoned_ to

death; so that it is evident they were ignorant of the manner of death

which he suffered.[516:6]

In _Sanhedr. 43 a_, Jesus it said to have had five disciples, among

whom were Mattheaus and Thaddeus. He is called "That Man," "The

Nazarine," "The Fool," and "The Hung." Thus Aben Ezra says that

Constantine put on his _labarum_ "a figure of the hung;" and, according

to R. Bechai, the Christians were called "Worshipers of the Hung."

Little is said about Jesus in the _Talmud_, except that he was a scholar

of Joshua Ben Perachiah (who lived a century before the time assigned by

the Christians for the birth of Jesus), accompanied him into Egypt,

there learned magic, and was a seducer of the people, and was finally

put to death by being stoned, and then hung as a blasphemer.

"The conclusion is, that no clearly defined traces of the personal Jesus

remain on the surface, or beneath the surface, of Christendom. The

silence of Josephus and other secular historians may be accounted for

without falling back on a theory of hostility or contempt.[517:1] The

_Christ_-idea cannot be spared from Christian development, but the

personal Jesus, in some measure, can be."

"The person of Jesus, though it may have been immense, is indistinct.

That a great character was there may be conceded; but precisely wherein

the character was great, is left to our _conjecture_. Of the eminent

persons who have swayed the spiritual destinies of mankind, none has

more completely disappeared from the critical view. The ideal image

which Christians have, for nearly two thousand years, worshiped under

the name of Jesus, has no authentic, distinctly visible, counterpart in

history."

"His followers have gone on with the process of idealization, placing

him higher and higher; making his personal existence more and more

essential; insisting more and more urgently on the necessity of private

intercourse with him; letting the Father subside into the background, as

an 'effluence,' and the Holy Ghost lapse from individual identity into

impersonal influence, in order that he might be all in all as

Regenerator and Saviour. From age to age the personal Jesus has been

made the object of an extreme adoration, till now _faith_ in the living

Christ is the heart of the Gospel; philosophy, science, culture,

humanity are thrust resolutely aside, and the great teachers of the age

are extinguished in order that _his_ light may shine." But, as Mr.

Frothingham remarks, in "The Cradle of the Christ": "In the order of

experience, historical and biographical truth is discovered by stripping

off layer after layer of exaggeration, and going back to the statements

of contemporaries. As a rule, figures are _reduced_, not enlarged, by

criticism. The influence of admiration is recognized as distorting and

falsifying, while exalting. The process of legend-making begins

immediately, goes on rapidly and with accelerating speed, and must be

liberally allowed for by the seeker after truth. In scores of instances

the historical individual turns out to be very much smaller than he was

painted by his terrified or loving worshipers. In no single case has it

been established that he was greater, or as great. It is, no doubt,

conceivable that such a case should occur, but it never has occurred, in

known instances, and cannot be presumed to have occurred in any

particular instance. The presumptions are against the correctness of the

glorified image. The disposition to exaggerate is so much stronger than

the disposition to underrate, that even really great men are placed

higher than they belong oftener than lower. The historical method works

backwards. Knowledge shrinks the man."[518:1]

As we are allowed to _conjecture_ as to what is true in the Gospel

history, we shall now do so.

The death of Herod, which occurred a few years before the time assigned

for the birth of Jesus, was followed by frightful social and political

convulsions in Judea. For two or three years all the elements of

disorder were abroad. Between pretenders to the vacant throne of Herod,

_and aspirants to the Messianic throne of David_, Judea was torn and

devastated. Revolt assumed the wildest form, the higher enthusiasm of

faith yielded to the lower fury of _fanaticism_; the celestial visions

of a kingdom of heaven were completely banished by the smoke and flame

of political hate. _Claimant after claimant of the dangerous supremacy

of the Messiah appeared, pitched a camp in the wilderness, raised the

banner, gathered a force, was attacked, defeated, banished or

crucified_; but _the frenzy did not abate_.

The popular aspect of the Messianic hope was _political_, not religious

or moral. The name _Messiah_ was synonymous with _King of the Jews_; it

suggested _political designs and aspirations_. The assumption of that

character by any individual drew on him the vigilance of the police.

[Illustration: Fig. No. 42]

[Illustration: Fig. No. 43]

That Jesus of Nazareth assumed the character of "_Messiah_," as did many

before and after him, and that his crucifixion[520:1] was simply an act

of the law on _political grounds_, just as it was in the case of other

so-called _Messiahs_, we believe to be the truth of the matter.[520:2]

"He is represented as being a native of _Galilee_, the _insurgent

district of the country_; nurtured, if not born, in Nazareth, one of its

chief cities; reared as a youth amid traditions of patriotic devotion,

and amid scenes associated with heroic dreams and endeavors. The

Galileans were restless, excitable people, beyond the reach of

conventionalities, remote from the centre of power, ecclesiastical and

secular, simple in their lives, bold of speech, independent in thought,

thoroughgoing in the sort of radicalism that is common among people who

live 'out of the world,' who have leisure to discuss the exciting topics

of the day, but too little knowledge, culture, or sense of social

responsibility to discuss them soundly. Their mental discontent and

moral intractability were proverbial. They were belligerents. The Romans

had more trouble with them than with the natives of any other province.

_The Messiahs all started out from Galilee, and never failed to collect

followers round their standard._ The Galileans, more than others, lived

in the anticipation of the Deliverer. The reference of the Messiah to

Galilee is therefore already an indication of the character he is to

assume."

To show the state the country must have been in at that time, we will

quote an incident or two from Josephus.

A religious enthusiast called the Samaritans together upon Mount

Gerizim, and assured them that he would work a miracle. "So they came

thither _armed_, and thought the discourse of the man probable; and as

they abode at a certain village, which was called Tirathaba, they got

the rest together of them, and desired to go up the mountain in a great

multitude together: but Pilate prevented their going up, by seizing upon

the roads by a great band of horsemen and footmen, who fell upon those

who were gotten together in the village; and when it came to an action,

some of them they slew, and others of them they put to flight, and took

a great many alive, the principal of whom, and also the most potent of

those that fled away, Pilate ordered to be slain."[521:1]

Not long before this Pilate pillaged the temple treasury, and used the

"sacred money" to bring a current of water to Jerusalem. The _Jews_ were

displeased with this, "and many ten thousands of the people got together

and made a clamor against him. Some of them used reproaches, and abused

the man, as crowds of such people usually do. So he habited a great

number of his soldiers in their habits, who carried daggers under their

garments, and sent them to a place where they might surround them. So he

bade the Jews himself go away; but they boldly casting reproaches upon

him, he gave the soldiers that signal which had been beforehand agreed

on; who laid upon them with much greater blows than Pilate had commanded

them, and equally punished those that were tumultuous, and those that

were not; nor did they spare them in the least: and since the people

were unarmed, and were caught by men prepared for what they were about,

there were a great number of them slain by this means, and others ran

away wounded. And thus an end was put to this sedition."[522:1]

It was such deeds as these, inflicted upon the Jews by their oppressors,

that made them think of the promised Messiah who was to deliver them

from bondage, and which made many zealous fanatics imagine themselves to

be "He who should come."[522:2]

There is reason to believe, as we have said, that Jesus of Nazareth

assumed the title of "_Messiah_." His age was throbbing and bursting

with suppressed energy. The pressure of the Roman Empire was required to

keep it down. "The Messianic hope had such vitality that it condensed

into moments the moral result of ages. The common people were watching

to see the heavens open, interpreted peals of thunder as angel voices,

and saw divine potents in the flight of birds. Mothers dreamed their

boys would be Messiah. The wildest preacher drew a crowd. The heart of

the nation swelled big with the conviction that the hour of destiny was

about to strike, that the kingdom of heaven was at hand. _The crown was

ready for any kingly head that might assume it._"[522:3]

The actions of this man, throughout his public career, we believe to be

those of a zealot whose zeal overrode considerations of wisdom; in fact,

a Galilean fanatic. Pilate condemns him reluctantly, feeling that he is

a harmless visionary, but is obliged to condemn him as one of the many

who persistently claimed to be the "_Messiah_," or "_King of the Jews_,"

an enemy of Cæsar, an instrument against the empire, a pretender to the

throne, a bold inciter to rebellion. The death he undergoes is the death

of the traitor and mutineer,[522:4] the death that was inflicted on many

such claimants, the death that would have been decreed to Judas the

Galilean,[522:5] had he been captured, and that was inflicted on

thousands of his deluded followers. _It was the Romans, then, who

crucified the man Jesus, and not the Jews._

"In the Roman law the _State_ is the main object, for which the

individual must live and die, with or against his will. In Jewish law,

the _person_ is made the main object, for which the State must live and

die; because the fundamental idea of the Roman law is power, and the

fundamental idea of Jewish law is justice."[523:1] _Therefore Caiaphas

and his conspirators did not act from the Jewish standpoint._ They

represented _Rome_, her principles, interest, and barbarous

caprices.[523:2] Not one point in the whole trial agrees with Jewish

laws and custom.[523:3] It is impossible to save it; it must be given up

as a transparent and unskilled invention of a _Gentile Christian_, who

knew nothing of Jewish law and custom, and was ignorant of the state of

civilization in Palestine, in the time of Jesus.

Jesus had been proclaimed the "_Messiah_," the "_Ruler of the Jews_,"

and the restorer of the kingdom of heaven. No Roman ear could understand

these pretensions, otherwise than in their rebellious sense. That

Pontius Pilate certainly understood under the title, "_Messiah_," the

king (the political chief of the nation), is evident from the

subscription of the cross, "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews," which

he did not remove in spite of all protestations of the Jews. There is

only one point in which the _four_ Gospels agree, and that is, that

early in the morning Jesus was delivered over to the _Roman governor_,

Pilate; that he was accused of high-treason against _Rome_--having been

proclaimed King of the Jews--and that in consequence thereof he was

condemned first to be scourged, and then to be crucified; all of which

was done in hot haste. _In all other points the narratives of the

Evangelists differ widely_, and so essentially that one story cannot be

made of the four accounts; nor can any particular points stand the test

of historical criticism, and vindicate its substantiality as a fact.

The Jews could not have crucified Jesus, _according to their laws_, if

they had inflicted on him the highest penalty of the law, since

crucifixion was _exclusively Roman_.[524:1] If the priests, elders,

Pharisees, Jews, or all of them wanted Jesus out of the way so badly,

why did they not have him quietly put to death while he was in their

power, and done at once. The writer of the fourth Gospel seems to have

understood this difficulty, and informs us that they could not kill him,

_because he had prophesied what death he should die_; so he could die no

other. It was dire necessity, that the heathen symbol of life and

immortality--the cross[524:2]--should be brought to honor among the

early Christians, and Jesus had to die on the cross (the Roman Gibbet),

_according to John_[524:3] simply because it was so _prophesied_. The

fact is, the crucifixion story, like the symbol of the crucifix itself,

_came from abroad_.[524:4] It was told with the avowed intention of

exonerating the Romans, and criminating the Jews, so they make the Roman

governor take water, "and wash his hands before the multitude, saying,

_I_ am innocent of the blood of this _just person_: see _ye_ to it." To

be sure of their case, they make the Jews say: "_His blood be on us, and

on our children._"[524:5]

"Another fact is this. Just at the period of time when misfortune and

ruination befell the Jews most severely, in the first post-apostolic

generation, the Christians were most active in making proselytes among

Gentiles. To have then preached that _a crucified Jewish Rabbi of

Galilee_ was their Saviour, would have sounded supremely ridiculous to

those heathens. To have added thereto, that the said Rabbi was crucified

by command of a Roman Governor, because he had been proclaimed 'King of

the Jews,' would have been fatal to the whole scheme. In the opinion of

the vulgar heathen, where the Roman Governor and Jewish Rabbi came in

conflict, the former must unquestionably be right, and the latter

decidedly wrong. To have preached a Saviour who was justly condemned to

die the death of a slave and villain, would certainly have proved fatal

to the whole enterprise. Therefore it was necessary to exonerate Pilate

and the Romans, and to throw the whole burden upon the Jews, in order to

establish the innocence and martyrdom of Jesus in the heathen mind."

That the crucifixion story, as related in the synoptic Gospels, was

written _abroad_, and _not_ in the Hebrew, or in the dialect spoken by

the Hebrews of Palestine, is evident from the following particular

points, noticed by Dr. Isaac M. Wise, a learned Hebrew scholar:

The _Mark_ and _Matthew_ narrators call the place of crucifixion

"_Golgotha_," to which the Mark narrator adds, "which is, being

interpreted, _the place of skulls_." The Matthew narrator adds the same

interpretation, which the John narrator copies without the word

"_Golgotha_," and adds, _it was a place near Jerusalem_. The Luke

narrator calls the place of crucifixion "_Calvary_," which is the LATIN

_Calvaria_, viz., "_the place of bare skulls_." Therefore the name does

not refer to the form of the hill, _but to the bare skulls upon

it_.[525:1] Now "_there is no such word as GOLGOTHA anywhere in Jewish

literature, and there is no such place mentioned anywhere near Jerusalem

or in Palestine by any writer_; and, in fact, there was no such place;

there could have been none near Jerusalem. The Jews buried their dead

carefully. Also the executed convict had to be buried before night. No

bare skulls, bleaching in the sun, could be found in Palestine,

especially not near Jerusalem. _It was law, that a bare skull, the bare

spinal column, and also the imperfect skeleton of any human being, make

man unclean by contact, and also by having either in the house._ Man,

thus made unclean, could not eat of any sacrificial meal, or of the

sacred tithe, before he had gone through the ceremonies of purification;

and whatever he touched was also unclean (Maimonides, Hil. Tumath Meth.,

iii. 1). Any impartial reader can see that the object of this law was to

prevent the barbarous practice of heathens of having human skulls and

skeletons lie about exposed to the decomposing influences of the

atmosphere, as the Romans did in Palestine after the fall of Bethar,

when for a long time they would give no permission to bury the dead

patriots. This law was certainly enforced most rigidly in the vicinity

of Jerusalem, of which they maintained "Jerusalem is more holy than all

other cities surrounded with walls," so that it was not permitted to

keep a dead body over night in the city, or to transport through it

human bones. Jerusalem was the place of the sacrificial meals and the

consumption of the sacred tithe, which was considered very holy

(Maimonides, Hil. Beth Habchirah, vii. 14); there, and in the

surroundings, skulls and skeletons were certainly never seen on the

surface of the earth, and consequently there was no place called

"_Golgotha_," and there was no such word in the Hebrew dialect. It is a

word coined by the Mark narrator to translate the Latin term

"_Calvaria_," which, together with the crucifixion story, _came from

Rome_. But after the Syrian word was made, nobody understood it, and the

Mark narrator was obliged to expound it."[526:1]

In the face of the arguments produced, the crucifixion story, as related

in the Gospels, cannot be upheld as an historical fact. There exists,

certainly, no rational ground whatever for the belief that the affair

took place _in the manner the Evangelists describe it_. All that can be

saved of the whole story is, that after Jesus had answered the first

question before Pilate, viz., "Art thou the King of the Jews?" which it

is natural to suppose he was asked, and also this can be supposed only,

he was given over to the Roman soldiers to be disposed of as soon as

possible, before his admirers and followers could come to his rescue, or

any demonstration in his favor be made. He was captured in the night, as

quietly as possible, and guarded in some place, probably in the

high-priest's court, completely secluded from the eyes of the populace;

and early in the morning he was brought before Pilate as cautiously and

quietly as it could be done, and at _his_ command, disposed of by the

soldiers as quickly as practicable, and in a manner not known to the

mass of the people. All this was done, most likely, while the multitude

worshiped on Mount Moriah, and nobody had an intimation of the tragical

end of the Man of Nazareth.

The bitter cry of Jesus, as he hung on the tree, "My God, my God, why

hast thou forsaken me?" disclosed the hope of deliverance that till the

last moment sustained his heart, and betrayed the anguish felt when the

hope was blighted; the sneers and hooting of the Roman soldiers

expressed their conviction that he had pretended to be what he was not.

The miracles ascribed to him, and the moral precepts put into his mouth,

in after years, are what might be expected; history was simply repeating

itself; the same thing had been done for others. "The preacher of the

Mount, the prophet of the Beatitudes, does but repeat, with persuasive

lips, what the law-givers of his race proclaimed in mighty tones of

command."[527:1]

The martyrdom of Jesus of Nazareth has been gratefully acknowledged by

his disciples, whose lives he saved by the sacrifice of his own, and by

their friends, who would have fallen by the score had he not prevented

the rebellion ripe at Jerusalem.[527:2] Posterity, infatuated with Pagan

apotheoses, made of that simple martyrdom an interesting legend, colored

with the myths of resurrection and ascension to that very heaven which

the telescope has put out of man's way. It is a novel myth, made to suit

the gross conceptions of ex-heathens. Modern theology, understanding

well enough that the myth cannot be saved, seeks refuge in the greatness

and self-denial of the man who died for an idea, as though Jesus had

been the only man who had died for an idea. Thousands, tens of thousands

of Jews, Christians, Mohammedans and Heathens, have died for ideas, and

some of them were very foolish. But Jesus did not die for an idea. He

never advanced anything new, that we know of, to die for. He was not

accused of saying or teaching anything _original_. Nobody has ever been

able to discover anything new and original in the Gospels. He evidently

died to save the lives of his friends, and this is much more meritorious

than if he had died for a questionable idea. But then the whole fabric

of vicarious atonement is demolished, and modern theology cannot get

over the absurdity that the Almighty Lord of the Universe, the infinite

and eternal cause of all causes, had to kill some innocent person in

order to be reconciled to the human race. However abstractly they

speculate and subtilize, there is always an undigested bone of man-god,

god-man, and vicarious atonement in the theological stomach. Therefore

theology appears so ridiculous in the eyes of modern philosophy. The

theological speculation cannot go far enough to hold pace with modern

astronomy. However nicely the idea may be dressed, the great God of the

immense universe looks too small upon the cross of Calvary; and the

human family is too large, has too numerous virtues and vices, to be

perfectly represented by, and dependent on, one Rabbi of Galilee.

Speculate as they may, one way or another, they must connect the Eternal

and the fate of the human family with the person and fate of Jesus. That

is the very thing which deprives Jesus of his crown of martyrdom, and

brings religion in perpetual conflict with philosophy. It was not the

religious idea which was crucified in Jesus and resurrected with him, as

with all its martyrs; although his belief in immortality may have

strengthened him in the agony of death. It was the idea of duty to his

disciples and friends which led him to the realms of death. This

deserves admiration, but no more. It demonstrates the nobility of human

nature, but proves nothing in regard to providence, or the providential

scheme of government.

The Christian story, _as the Gospels narrate it_, cannot stand the test

of criticism. You approach it critically and it falls. _Dogmatic

Christology_ built upon it, has, therefore, a very frail foundation.

Most so-called lives of Christ, or biographies of Jesus, are works of

fiction, erected by imagination on the shifting foundation of meagre and

unreliable records. There are very few passages in the Gospels which can

stand the rigid application of honest criticism. In modern science and

philosophy, orthodox _Christology_ is out of the question.

"This 'sacred tradition' has in itself a glorious vitality, which

Christians may unblameably entitle immortal. But it certainly will not

lose in beauty, grandeur, or truth, if all the details concerning Jesus

which are current in the Gospels, and all the mythology of his person,

be forgotten or discredited. Christianity will remain without Christ.

"This formula has in it nothing paradoxical. Rightly interpreted, it

simply means: _All that is best in Judæo-Christian sentiment, moral or

spiritual, will survive, without Rabbinical fancies, cultured by

perverse logic; without huge piles of fable built upon them: without the

Oriental Satan, a formidable rival to the throne of God; without the

Pagan invention of Hell and Devils_."

In modern criticism, the Gospel sources become so utterly worthless and

unreliable, that it takes more than ordinary faith to believe a large

portion thereof to be true. The _Eucharist_ was not established by

Jesus, and cannot be called a sacrament. The trials of Jesus are

positively not true: they are pure inventions.[528:1] The crucifixion

story, _as narrated_, is certainly not true, and it is extremely

difficult to save the bare fact that Jesus was crucified. What can the

critic do with books in which a few facts must be ingeniously guessed

from under the mountain of ghost stories,[528:2] childish

miracles,[529:1] and dogmatic tendencies?[529:2] It is absurd to expect

of him to regard them as sources of religious instruction, in preference

to any other mythologies and legends. That is the point at which modern

critics have arrived, therefore, the Gospels have become books for the

museum and archæologist, for students of mythology and ancient

literature.

The spirit of dogmatic Christology hovers still over a portion of

civilized society, in antic organizations, disciplines, and hereditary

forms of faith and worship; in science and philosophy, in the realm of

criticism, its day is past. The universal, religious, and ethical

element of Christianity has no connection whatever with Jesus or his

apostles, with the Gospel, or the Gospel story; _it exists independent

of any person or story_. Therefore it needs neither the Gospel story nor

its heroes. If we profit by the example, by the teachings, or the

discoveries of men of past ages, to these men we are indebted, and are

in duty bound to acknowledge our indebtedness; but why should we give to

_one_ individual, Jesus of Nazareth, the credit of it _all_? It is true,

that by selecting from the Gospels whatever portions one may choose, a

_common practice among Christian writers_, a noble and grand character

may be depicted, _but who was the original of this character_? We may

find the same individual outside of the Gospels, and before the time of

Jesus. The moral precepts of the Gospels, also, were in existence before

the Gospels themselves were in existence.[529:3] Why, then, extol the

hero of the Gospels, and forget all others?

As it was at the end of Roman Paganism, so is it now: the masses are

deceived and fooled, or do it for themselves, and persons of vivacious

fantasies prefer the masquerade of delusion, to the simple sublimity of

naked but majestic truth. The decline of the church as a political power

proves beyond a doubt the decline of Christian faith. The conflicts of

Church and State all over the European continent, and the hostility

between intelligence and _dogmatic Christianity_, demonstrates the death

of _Christology_ in the consciousness of modern culture. It is useless

to shut our eyes to these facts. Like rabbinical Judaism, dogmatic

Christianity was the product of ages without typography, telescopes,

microscopes, telegraphs, and power of steam. "These right arms of

intelligence have fought the titanic battles, conquered and demolished

the ancient castles, and remove now the débris, preparing the ground

upon which there shall be the gorgeous temple of humanity, one universal

republic, one universal religion of intelligence, and one great

universal brotherhood. This is the new covenant, the gospel of humanity

and reason."

"----Hoaryheaded selfishness has felt

Its death-blow, and is tottering to the grave:

A brighter morn awaits the human day;

War with its million horrors, and fierce hell,

Shall live but in the memory of time,

Who, like a penitent libertine, shall start,

Look back, and shudder at his younger years."

FOOTNOTES:

[508:1] "For knowledge of the man Jesus, of his idea and his aims, and

of the outward form of his career, the _New Testament_ is our only hope.

If this hope fails, the pillared firmament of his starry fame is

rottenness; the base of Christianity, so far as it was personal and

individual, is built on stubble." (John W. Chadwick.)

[508:2] M. Renan, after declaring Jesus to be a "_fanatic_," and

admitting that, "his friends thought him, at moments, beside himself;"

and that, "his enemies declared him possessed by a devil," says: "The

man here delineated merits a place at the summit of human grandeur."

"This is the Supreme man, a sublime personage;" "to call him divine is

no exaggeration." Other liberal writers have written in the same strain.

[509:1] "The Christ of Paul was not a person, but an _idea_; he took no

pains to learn the facts about the individual Jesus. He actually boasted

that the Apostles had taught him nothing. _His_ Christ was an ideal

conception, evolved from his own feeling and imagination, and taking on

new powers and attributes from year to year to suit each new emergency."

(John W. Chadwick.)

[510:1] This subject is considered in Appendix D.

[510:2] _Scythia_ was a name employed in ancient times, to denote a

vast, indefinite, and almost unknown territory north and east of the

Black Sea, the Caspian, and the Sea of Aral.

[510:3] See Herodotus, book 4, ch. 82.

[510:4] See Dupuis, p. 264.

[510:5] See Knight's Anct. Art and Mythology, p. 96, and Mysteries of

Adoni, p. 90.

[510:6] See Dupuis, p. 264.

[510:7] See Bell's Pantheon, vol. i. p. 7.

[510:8] See Ibid. vol. i. p. 27.

[510:9] Ibid.

[510:10] Ibid. vol. i. p. 2, and Bonwick, p. 155.

[510:11] See Chambers, art. "Jonah."

[510:12] See Bible for Learners, vol. i. p. 152, and Goldzhier, p. 280.

[510:13] See Curious Myths, p. 264.

[511:1] "Whilst, in one part of the Christian world, the chief objects

of interest were the _human_ nature and _human_ life of Jesus, in

another part of the Christian world the views taken of his person

because so _idealistic_, that his humanity _was reduced to a phantom

without reality_. The various _Gnostic_ systems generally agreed in

saying that the Christ was an _Æon_, the redeemer of the _spirits_ of

men, and that he had little or no contact with their corporeal nature."

(A. Réville: Hist. of the Dogma of the Deity of Jesus.)

[511:2] Epiphanius says that there were TWENTY heresies BEFORE CHRIST,

and there can be no doubt that there is much truth in the observation,

for most of the rites and doctrines of the Christians of all sects

existed before the time of Jesus of Nazareth.

[512:1] "Accipis avengelium? et maxime. Proinde ergo et natum accipis

Christum. Non ita est. Neque enim sequitur ut si evangelium accipio,

idcirco et natum accipiam Christum. Ergo non putas cum ex Maria Virgine

esse? Manes dixit, Absit ut Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum per naturalia

pudenda mulieris de scendisse confitear." (Lardner's Works, vol. iv. p.

20.)

[512:2] "I maintain," says he, "that the Son of God was _born_: why am I

not ashamed of maintaining such a thing? Why! because it is itself a

shameful thing--I maintain that the Son of God _died_: well, _that_ is

wholly credible because it is monstrously absurd. I maintain that after

having been buried, _he rose again_: and _that_ I take to be absolutely

true, _because it was manifestly impossible_."

[512:3] King's Gnostics, p. 1.

[512:4] I. John, iv. 2, 3.

[512:5] II. John, 7.

[512:6] 1st Book Hermas: Apoc., ch. iii.

[512:7] Chapter II.

[513:1] Chapter II.

[513:2] Chapter III.

[513:3] Chapter III.

[513:4] I. Timothy, iii. 16.

[513:5] Irenæus, speaking of them, says: "They hold that men ought not

to confess him who _was crucified_, but him who came in the form of man,

_and was supposed to be crucified_, and was called Jesus." (See Lardner:

vol. viii. p. 353.) They could not conceive of "the first-begotten Son

of God" being put to death on a cross, and suffering like an ordinary

being, so they thought Simon of Cyrene must have been substituted for

him, as the ram was substituted in the place of Isaac. (See Ibid. p.

857.)

[513:6] Apol. 1, ch. xxi.

[514:1] Koran, ch. iv.

[514:2] Chapter XX.

[514:3] Chapter II.

[514:4] Col. i. 23.

[514:5] I. Timothy, iii. 16.

[514:6] The authenticity of these Epistles has been freely questioned,

even by the most conservative critics.

[515:1] See Bunsen's Angel-Messiah, and Chapter XXXVII., this work.

[515:2] Quoted by Max Müller: The Science of Relig., p. 228.

[515:3] Ch. cxvii.

[515:4] Ch. xxii.

[516:1] Ch. iv. 5.

[516:2] Josephus: Antiq., b. xx. ch. v. 2.

[516:3] It is true there was another Annas high-priest at Jerusalem, but

this was when _Gratus_ was procurator of Judea, some twelve or fifteen

years before Pontius Pilate held the same office. (See Josephus: Antiq.,

book xviii. ch. ii. 3.)

[516:4] See Appendix D.

[516:5] See the Martyrdom of Jesus, p. 100.

[516:6] According to Dio Cassius, Plutarch, Strabo and others, there

existed, in the time of Herod, among the Roman Syrian heathens, a

wide-spread and deep sympathy for a "_Crucified King of the Jews_." This

was the youngest son of Aristobul, the heroic Maccabee. In the year 43

B. C., we find this young man--_Antigonus_--in Palestine claiming the

crown, his cause having been declared just by Julius Cæsar. Allied with

the Parthians, he maintained himself in his royal position for six years

against Herod and Mark Antony. At last, after a heroic life and reign,

he fell in the hands of this Roman. "_Antony now gave the kingdom to a

certain Herod, and, having stretched Antigonus on a cross and scourged

him, a thing never done before to any other king by the Romans, he put

him to death._" (Dio Cassius, book xlix. p. 405.)

The fact that all prominent historians of those days mention this

extraordinary occurrence, and the manner they did it, show that it was

considered one of Mark Antony's worst crimes: and that the sympathy with

the "Crucified King" was wide-spread and profound. (See The Martyrdom of

Jesus of Nazareth, p. 106.)

Some writers think that there is a connection between this and the

Gospel story; that they, in a certain measure, put Jesus in the place of

Antigonus, just as they put Herod in the place of Kansa. (See Chapter

XVIII.)

[517:1] Canon Farrar thinks that Josephus' silence on the subject of

Jesus and Christianity, was as deliberate as it was dishonest. (See his

Life of Christ, vol. i. p. 63.)

[518:1] Many examples might be cited to confirm this view, but the case

of _Joseph Smith_, in our own time and country, will suffice.

The Mormons regard him very much as Christians regard Jesus; as the

Mohammedans do Mohammed; or as the Buddhists do Buddha. A coarse sort of

religious feeling and fervor appears to have been in Smith's nature. He

seems, from all accounts, to have been cracked on theology, as so many

zealots have been, and cracked to such an extent that his early

acquaintances regarded him as a downright fanatic.

The common view that he was an impostor is not sustained by what is

known of him. He was, in all probability, of unbalanced mind, a

monomaniac, as most prophets have been; but there is no reason to think

that he did not believe in himself, and substantially in what he taught.

He has declared that, when he was about fifteen, he began to reflect on

the importance of being prepared for a future state. He went from one

church to another without finding anything to satisfy the hunger of his

soul, consequently, he retired into himself; he sought solitude; he

spent hours and days in meditation and prayer, after the true manner of

all accredited saints, and was soon repaid by the visits of angels. One

of these came to him when he was but eighteen years old, and the house

in which he was seemed filled with consuming fire. The presence--he

styles it a personage--had a pace like lightning, and proclaimed himself

to be an angel of the Lord. He vouchsafed to Smith a vast deal of highly

important information of a celestial order. He told him that his

(Smith's) prayers had been heard, and his sins forgiven; that the

covenant which the Almighty had made with the old Jews was to be

fulfilled; that the introductory work for the second coming of Christ

was now to begin; that the hour for the preaching of the gospel in its

purity to all peoples was at hand, and that Smith was to be an

instrument in the hands of God, to further the divine purpose in the new

dispensation. The celestial stranger also furnished him with a sketch of

the origin, progress, laws and civilization of the American aboriginals,

and declared that the blessing of heaven had finally been withdrawn from

them. To Smith was communicated the momentous circumstance that certain

plates containing an abridgment of the records of the aboriginals and

ancient prophets, who had lived on this continent, were hidden in a hill

near Palmyra. The prophet was counseled to go there and look at them,

and did so. Not being holy enough to possess them as yet, he passed some

months in spiritual probation, after which the records were put into his

keeping. These had been prepared, it is claimed, by a prophet called

Mormon, who had been ordained by God for the purpose, and to conceal

them until he should produce them for the benefit of the faithful, and

unite them with the Bible for the achievement of his will. They form the

celebrated Book of Mormon--whence the name Mormon--and are esteemed by

the Latter-Day Saints as of equal authority with the Old and New

Testaments, and as an indispensable supplement thereto, because they

include God's disclosures to the Mormon world. These precious records

were sealed up and deposited A. D. 420 in the place where Smith had

viewed them by the direction of the angel.

The records were, it is held, in the reformed Egyptian tongue, and Smith

translated them through the inspiration of the angel, and one Oliver

Cowdrey wrote down the translation as reported by the God-possessed

Joseph. This translation was published in 1830, and its divine origin

was attested by a dozen persons--all relatives and friends of Smith.

Only these have ever pretended to see the original plates, which have

already become traditional. The plates have been frequently called for

by skeptics, but all in vain. Naturally, warm controversy arose

concerning the authenticity of the Book of Mormon, and disbelievers have

asserted that they have indubitable evidence that it is, with the

exception of various unlettered interpolations, principally borrowed

from a queer, rhapsodical romance written by an eccentric ex-clergyman

named Solomon Spalding.

Smith and his disciples were ridiculed and socially persecuted; but they

seemed to be ardently earnest, and continued to preach their creed,

which was to the effect that the millennium was at hand; that our

aboriginals were to be converted, and that the New Jerusalem--the last

residence and home of the saints--was to be near the centre of this

continent. The Vermont prophet, later on, was repeatedly mobbed, even

shot at. His narrow escapes were construed as interpositions of divine

providence, but he displayed perfect coolness and intrepidity through

all his trials. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints was

first established in the spring of 1830 at Manchester, N. Y.; but it

awoke such fierce opposition, particularly from the orthodox, many of

them preachers, that Smith and his associates deemed it prudent to move

farther west. They established themselves at Kirtland, O., and won there

many converts. Hostility to them still continued, and grew so fierce

that the body transferred itself to Missouri, and next to Illinois,

settling in the latter state near the village of Commerce, which was

renamed Nauvoo.

The Governor and Legislature of Illinois favored the Mormons, but the

anti-Mormons made war on them in every way, and the custom of "sealing

wives," which is yet mysterious to the Gentiles, caused serious

outbreaks, and resulted in the incarceration of the prophet and his

brother Hiram at Carthage. Fearing that the two might be released by the

authorities, a band of ruffians broke into the jail, in the summer of

1844, and murdered them in cold blood. This was most fortunate for the

memory of Smith and for his doctrines. It placed him in the light of a

holy martyr, and lent to them a dignity and vitality they had never

before enjoyed.

[520:1] When we speak of Jesus being _crucified_, we do not intend to

convey the idea that he was put to death on a cross of the _form_

adopted by Christians. This cross was the symbol of _life_ and

_immortality_ among our heathen ancestors (see Chapter XXXIII.), and in

adopting _Pagan religious symbols_, and baptizing them anew, the

Christians took this along with others. The crucifixion was not a symbol

of the _earliest_ church; no trace of it can be found in the Catacombs.

Some of the earliest that did appear, however, are similar to figures

No. 42 and No. 43, above, which represent two of the modes in which the

Romans crucified their slaves and criminals. (See Chapter XX., on the

Crucifixion of Jesus.)

[520:2] According to the Matthew and Mark narrators, Jesus' head was

_anointed_ while sitting at table in the house of Simon the leper. Now,

this practice was common among the kings of Israel. It was the sign and

symbol of royalty. The word "_Messiah_" signifies the "Anointed One,"

and none of the kings of Israel were styled the Messiah unless anointed.

(See The Martyrdom of Jesus of Nazareth, p. 42.)

[521:1] Josephus: Antiquities, book xviii. ch. iv. 1.

[522:1] Josephus: Antiquities, book xviii. chap. iii. 2.

[522:2] "From the death of Herod, 4 B. C., to the death of Bar-Cochba,

132 A. D., no less than _fifty_ different enthusiasts set up as the

Messiah, and obtained more or less following." (John W. Chadwick.)

[522:3] "There was, at _this time_, a prevalent expectation that some

remarkable personage was about to appear in Judea. The Jews were

anxiously looking for the coming of the MESSIAH. This personage, they

supposed, would be a _temporal prince_, and they were expecting that he

would deliver them from Roman bondage." (Albert Barnes: Notes, vol. i.

p. 7.)

"The central and dominant characteristic of the teaching of the Rabbis,

was the certain advent of a great national Deliverer--the MESSIAH. . . .

The national mind had become so inflammable, by constant brooding on

this one theme, _that any bold spirit rising in revolt against the Roman

power, could find an army of fierce disciples who trusted that it should

be he who would redeem Israel_." (Geikie: The Life of Christ, vol. i. p.

79.)

[522:4] "The penalty of _crucifixion_, according to Roman law and

custom, was inflicted on slaves, and in the provinces _on rebels only_."

(The Martyrdom of Jesus, p. 96.)

[522:5] Judas, the _Gaulonite_ or _Galilean_, as Josephus calls him,

declared, when Cyrenius came to tax the Jewish people, that "this

taxation was no better than an introduction to slavery," and exhorted

the nation to assert their liberty. He therefore prevailed upon his

countrymen to revolt. (See Josephus: Antiq., b. xviii. ch. i. 1, and

Wars of the Jews, b. ii. ch. viii. 1.)

[523:1] The Martyrdom of Jesus of Nazareth, p. 30.

[523:2] "That the High Council did accuse Jesus, I suppose no one will

doubt; and since they could neither wish or expect the Roman Governor to

make himself judge of _their sacred law_, it becomes certain that their

accusation was _purely political_, and took such a form as this: 'He has

accepted tumultuous shouts that he is the legitimate and predicted _King

of Israel_, and in this character has ridden into Jerusalem with the

forms of state understood to be _royal_ and _sacred_; with what purpose,

we ask, if not to overturn _our_ institutions, and _your_ dominion?' If

Jesus spoke, at the crisis which Matthew represents, the virulent speech

attributed to him (Matt. xxiii.), we may well believe that this gave a

new incentive to the rulers; for it is such as no government in Europe

would overlook or forgive: _but they are not likely to have expected

Pilate to care for any conduct which might be called an ecclesiastical

broil_. The assumption of _royalty_ was clearly the point of their

attack. Even the mildest man among them may have thought his conduct

dangerous and needing repression." (Francis W. Newman, "What is

Christianity without Christ?")

_According to the Synoptic Gospels_, Jesus was completely innocent of

the charge which has sometimes been brought against him, _that he wished

to be considered as a God come down to earth_. His enemies certainly

would not have failed to make such a pretension the basis and the

continual theme of their accusations, if it had been possible to do so.

_The two grounds upon which he was brought before the Sanhedrim were,

first, the bold words he was supposed to have spoken about the temple;

and, secondly and chiefly, the fact that he claimed to be the Messiah_,

i. e., "_The King of the Jews_." (Albert Réville: "The Doctrine of the

Dogma of the Deity of Jesus," p. 7.)

[523:3] See The Martyrdom of Jesus, p. 30.

[524:1] See _note_ 4, p. 522.

[524:2] See Matt. xx. 19.

[524:3] John xviii. 31, 32.

[524:4] That is, the crucifixion story _as related in the Gospels_. See

_note_ 1, p. 520.

[524:5] Matthew xxvii. 24, 25.

[525:1] Commentators, in endeavoring to get over this difficulty, say

that, "it _may_ come from the look or form of the spot itself, bald,

round, and skull-like, and therefore a mound or hillock," but, if it

means "_the place of bare skulls_," no such construction as the above

can be put to the word.

[526:1] The Martyrdom of Jesus of Nazareth, pp. 109-111.

[527:1] O. B. Frothingham: The Cradle of the Christ, p. 11.

The reader is referred to "Judaism: Its Doctrines and Precepts," by Dr.

Isaac M. Wise. Printed at the office of the "American Israelite,"

Cincinnati, Ohio.

[527:2] If Jesus, instead of giving himself up quietly, had _resisted_

against being arrested, there certainly would have been bloodshed, as

there was on many other similar occasions.

[528:1] If what is recorded In the Gospels on the subject was true, no

historian of that day could fail to have noticed it, but instead of this

there is _nothing_.

[528:2] See Matthew, xxvii. 51-53.